Structure, morphologies and mechanical properties study of Cr-Zr-N films

Cr-Zr-N films were deposited in a DC magnetron sputtering system with Cr and Zr targets under the mixed Ar and N2 gases. The effect of the Zr content on structure, morphology, hardness and tribological behavior of Cr-Zr-N films were systematically investigated. The XRD result showed that all the Cr-Zr-N films exhibited FCC structure. FESEM indicated that the morphologies of the film changed from particular surface feature with a faceted polygon to granular-like structure as the Zr content increased. Nano-indentation results exhibited that with an increase of the Zr content in the films, the hardness and elastic modulus linearly increased and reached maximum values of 27.1 GPa and 350.5 GPa at a Zr content of 20.8 at.%. Tribological test results indicated that the wear rate decreases remarkably from 3.2 × 10−14 m3/Nm to 0.98 × 10−14 m3/Nm with increasing Zr content in the films from 1.0 at.% to 20.8 at.%.