Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
10668199 | Surface and Coatings Technology | 2011 | 7 Pages |
Abstract
Nanocrystalline hard coatings of the system V-Al-C-N with an f.c.c. metastable solid solution (V,Al)(N,C) microstructure were deposited by non-reactive r.f.-magnetron sputtering of a ceramic compound target (composition: 60Â mol.% VC and 40Â mol.% AIN) in a pure argon discharge at 1.1Â Pa. The chemical composition of the as-deposited coatings was determined by electron probe micro analysis (EPMA). The microstructure of the thin films was characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and selected area electron diffraction (SAED). The influence of a moderate argon ion bombardment during thin film deposition, realized through the variation of the argon ion energy in the range 20Â eV-170Â eV, as a means to adjust the adatom surface mobility and surface diffusion processes, on the microstructure evolution and on the Vickers micro-hardness is discussed. The conditions for the formation of a metastable solid solution f.c.c. (V,AI)(C,N) thin film microstructure are described in terms of surface processes during film growth and thermodynamic considerations. It was demonstrated, that a metastable phase formation in the quaternary material system V-Al-C-N can easily be adjusted in magnetron sputter deposition.
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Physical Sciences and Engineering
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Authors
M. Stüber, S. Ulrich, H. Leiste, H. Holleck,