Metal nitrides is a technologically very important class of materials. Transition metal nitrides can be either insulating or conducting, depending on the oxidation state of the metal 1 , while p-block metals forms semiconducting nitrides with bandgaps ranging from infrared to ultraviolet . Important examples are tantalum nitride, which forms diffusion barriers in copper interconnects in device structures , silicon nitride which forms insulating dielectric layers and gallium nitride which forms the basis for all blue light emitting diodes. Several transition metal nitrides are also very hard materials with applications in the coatings industry e.g. titanium nitride which is golden colored hard coating on cutting tools. All examples above require that a thin film of the nitride is formed on a surface.