A comparative study of CrAlN films synthesized by dc and pulsed dc reactive magnetron facing target sputtering system with different pulse frequencies

▶ All films had an fcc-CrN crystalline structure. ▶ Pulsed sputtered CrAlN films showed higher internal stress values, which increased with increasing pulse frequency. ▶ Pulsed sputtered CrAlN films showed smaller grain sizes, which decreased with increasing pulse frequency. ▶ The plastic hardness of the films increased from 16 to 36 GPa when increasing the pulse frequency. Pulsed synthesized CrAlN films showed higher plastic hardness values compared to dc synthesized CrAlN film. ▶ The microstructure and properties of CrAlN films can strongly vary in the pulsed sputtering condition in balanced magnetron sputtering system.