Microstructures and properties of titanium nitride films prepared by pulsed laser deposition at different substrate temperatures

The nanostructured titanium nitride (TiN) films were fabricated by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique at different substrate temperatures under residual vacuum, and the influence of substrate temperatures on the microstructure, mechanical and tribological properties of TiN films was investigated and discussed. The results shown that the consistent stoichiometric TiN films were obtained and the grain size increased from 10.5 to 38.7 nm with the increasing of substrate temperature. The hardness of films decreased with the substrate temperatures increasing, the highest hardness reached to 30.6 GPa at the substrate temperature of 25 °C, and the critical load increased first and decreased at 500 °C, the highest critical load was 23.8 N at the substrate temperature of 300 °C. The film deposited at the substrate temperature of 25 °C registered the lowest friction coefficient of 0.088 and wear rate of 7.8 × 10−7 mm3/(N m). The excellent tribological performance of the films was attributed to the small grain size, high hardness and smooth surface of the film.