A Mössbauer comparative study of the local environment in metastable 304 stainless steel films depending on the preparation mode

Formation of an MN-type cubic nitride phase in reactively sputtered stainless steel-nitrogen films

“…1 shows the grazing angle incidence X-ray diffraction patterns generated from the films deposited on the silicon substrates heated to 300 C. The phase constituents of all the films are summarized in Table 2, together with the interplanar spacings (d) and lattice parameters, as determined by XRD. It can be seen that although the austenitic stainless steel target has an austenitic fcc structure, the film produced in pure Ar atmosphere exhibits a ferritic bcc structure, in agreement with the observations of other investigators [1][2][3][4][5][6]. This bcc structure was retained when up to 5% N 2 was introduced into the sputtering gas mixture.…”

“…Such BCC stainless steel films exhibit interesting ferromagnetism and have been the subject of several investigators [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Several deposition techniques have been used to fabricate such BCC films, including ion beam sputtering [1][2][3], magnetron sputtering [4], arc discharge [5] and thermal evaporation [6]. More recently, it has been shown that the austenitic fcc structure can be stabilized in the stainless steel films by the incorporation of nitrogen through reactive sputtering in nitrogen and argon gas mixtures [7][8][9].…”

Metallography of Sputter-Deposited SS304+Al Coatings

“…The columnar grains predominantly consisted of the a-ferrite phase and the DF micrographs confirmed that the network of dark areas comprised the r phase. Formation of the a-ferrite phase in sputter-deposited SS304 was in agreement with other studies in the existing literature [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. In addition to vapor deposition, other non-equilibrium processes such as rapid solidification processing [28,29], laser processing [30], and mechanical alloying [31] have also been shown to result in the formation of the ferrite phase from austenitic SS304.…”

“…The influence of several factors, namely nanocrystalline grain size, strain in the coatings, and enrichment of alloying elements Cr and Ni was discussed; but none of these factors could satisfactorily explain formation of the r phase in sputterdeposited SS304 coating [16]. It is noteworthy, however, that vapor deposition of SS304 did not lead to r phase in majority of the earlier work [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. This clearly indicates that the conditions in sputter deposition processing used in our current study are different from those employed by others.…”

Evidence for two ferromagnetic iron sites in Fe–Cr–Ni thin films prepared by thermal evaporation

“…The production of SS thin films by thermal evaporation (TE) of solid material is a relatively simple process of synthesis that has not been much applied up to now. Recently, we published preliminary results in this field, with the emphasis put on the comparison of the microstructural states obtained by the IBS and TE techniques [6].…”