In this study, aluminium nitride (AlN) thin films were synthesised by plasma-enhanced reactive DC magnetron sputtering on glass and Si (100) substrates and the effect of bias voltages on the structural, optical and morphological properties of the coatings has been studied. According to the grazing angle XRD studies, AlN in hexagonal (wurtzite) structure has been obtained for all the coatings. ( 002) plane c-axis oriented films have been achieved at 150 and 175 V bias voltages. AFM analyses demonstrated that with the increase in the bias voltages, a transformation from coarse to fine granular morphology has been occurred and smoother surfaces with a decrease in the surface roughness from 3.40 nm to about 1.90 nm were obtained. The results also demonstrated that the high transmittance values of AlN films were not affected by the change in the bias voltages and about 80% of transmittance obtained for all AlN films deposited in this study.
In this study, boron carbide thin films were deposited on AISI M2 grade high-speed steel substrates by plasma-enhanced DC magnetron sputtering of an 'in-house' produced boron carbide target material. Tribological properties of the coatings have been evaluated by a 'pin-on-disc' tribometer. Wear tracks on boron carbide thin films were investigated by scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectroscopy, electron probe microanalysis and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) elemental ion imaging. The results of analyses provided information about the reliability of the SIMS ion imaging compared to the other investigation techniques on nano-layers and nano-sized thin films.
International audienceIn this study, about 400 nm thick BCN films with different compositions were grown by reactive DC magnetron sputtering of a B4C target by varying the N2/Ar proportion in the sputtering gas from 0 to 50%. The microstructures of the films were determined by FE-SEM. The chemical composition was determined by electron probe microanalyser (EPMA). The crystallinity of the films was studied by grazing incidence XRD analyses. FTIR was used to determine the chemical bonding structures. The elemental depth profiles of the films were obtained from SIMS measurements. Nanoindentation and wear tests were used to determine the mechanical and tribological properties. Hardness, elastic modulus and wear rates of BCN films were significantly decreased with the increase of nitrogen in the coating composition. The results demonstrated that thin films in the ternary triangle B–C–N with tailored properties can easily be deposited by reactive DC magnetron sputtering with varying N2 flow rates
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