Hardness enhancement in nanocrystalline tantalum thin films

Nanocrystalline tantalum thin film was prepared by radio frequency magnetron sputtering on a glass substrate. The structure and mechanical properties of the as-deposited thin film were investigated by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, and nanoindentation. The salient feature in the present tantalum thin film with a grain size of 76.5 nm is the remarkable enhancement of hardness, being about one order of magnitude higher than that of bulk coarse-grained tantalum.