Thermal stability and mechanical properties of Ti-Al-B-N thin films

The calculations suggest that energetically, boron prefers the metal sublattice (hence, the formation of (Ti1 − xAlx)1 − yByN is preferred over Ti1 − xAlxByN1 − y). The cubic-to-wurtzite phase transition is unchanged for Ti1 − xAlxByN1 − y solid solutions, but shifts to lower Al contents for (Ti1 − xAlx)1 − yByN solid solutions, with increasing B. Furthermore, the experimental results show, that due to the addition of boron, the hardness of a w-Ti1 − xAlxN thin film significantly increases to ~ 31 GPa after annealing at 1000 °C.