Investigation of microstructure and properties of magnetron sputtered Zr-Si-N thin films with different Si content

Zr-Si-N thin films with varying silicon content were deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering in order to investigate the effect of Si content in microstructure, morphology, mechanical properties and oxidation resistance of the coatings. Characterizations were carried out using RBS, GAXRD, XPS, nanohardness, SEM and oxidation tests. Silicon content was set between 0 and 15 at.%. GAXRD results indicate peak intensity reduction and broadening increase due silicon nitride segregation, which is responsible for grain size reduction, reaching magnitudes lower than 10 nm, calculated by Scherrer. XPS confirmed the presence of compounds like ZrN and Si3N4. ZrN film is almost fully oxidized at 773 K, while films with high silicon content maintain ZrN grains stable at 973 K. Silicon addition to ZrN provided an increment in hardness values of 32% and also increased H3/E2 ratio.