Effect of modulation period and thickness ratio on the growth and mechanical properties of heteroepitaxial c-Ti0.4Al0.6N/h-Cr2N multilayer filmsShow others and affiliations
2023 (English)In: Surface & Coatings Technology, ISSN 0257-8972, E-ISSN 1879-3347, Vol. 472, article id 129921Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
c-TiAlN/h-Cr2N multilayer thin films, with modulation period lambda of 10 nm, 20 nm, and 30 nm and different Cr2N/lambda thickness ratios (25 %, 50 % and 75 %), were deposited on c-plane sapphire using reactive DC magnetron sputtering. All multilayers exhibited preferred orientation [Cr2N(0001)/ TiAlN(111)](x), regardless of the modulation period and thickness ratios. X-ray diffraction f-scans revealed an influence of the Cr2N layer thickness on the overall orientation quality of the multilayer, where the thicker the Cr2N layer the higher orientation quality. Atomically resolved high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy revealed well defined and homogeneous atom stacking in the Cr2N layers. In contrast, the cubic TiAlN layer was found to be composed of coherent cubic AlN-rich and TiN-rich regions. Additionally, the TiAlN layers were found with a higher density of grain boundaries compared to the Cr2N layers. Mechanical properties evaluation revealed that the film with a 20 nm period and 75 % Cr2N thickness ratio exhibited the highest hardness of 27.11 +/- 0.72 GPa and an reduced elastic modulus of 349.1 +/- 6.84 GPa. The hardness increased as the thickness of Cr2N increased, until reaching 10 nm, after which it remained at a high level (similar to 25 GPa).
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA , 2023. Vol. 472, article id 129921
Keywords [en]
Epitaxy; TiAlN; Transition nitride; Hexagonal transition nitride; Hardness
National Category
Materials Chemistry
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-198655DOI: 10.1016/j.surfcoat.2023.129921ISI: 001072020300001OAI: oai:DiVA.org:liu-198655DiVA, id: diva2:1806579
Note
Funding Agencies|Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linkoping University [2009 00971]; Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation through the Wallenberg Academy Fellows program [KAW-2020.0196]; Swedish Research Council (VR) [2021-03826]; Swedish Energy Agency [52740-1]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [52272065]; National Major Science and Technology Projects of China [2017-IV-00-05-0042]; Fundamental Research Fund for the Central Universities [NP2022424]; China Scholarship Council (CSC) [202106830068]; Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF); Swedish National Infrastructure in Advanced Electron Microscopy [2021-00171, RIF21-0026]
2023-10-232023-10-232024-05-01