Characterization and properties of CrN films deposited by ion-source-enhanced middle frequency magnetron sputtering

Estimation of the stress relief induced in CrN thin films by buckling

“…Moreover, the 100 nm order of magnitude deduced from [31] is in good agreement with the nanoindentation results. If a hardness of 22 GPa is in good agreement with the known values for CrN films [2,18], the highest value ( ∼ =35 GPa) obtained in the outermost layer better indicates the presence of a harder phase. The measured hardness of this hard layer is in good agreement with the hardness of Cr 2 O 3 films [17,32].…”

“…However, cubic crystalline structure CrN crystals show no active Raman bands and only thin films presenting microstructural defects can exhibit Raman spectra of poor quality [17,18] that are clearly not suitable for any stress analysis. On the contrary, Cr 2 O 3 films have well defined Raman spectra with known temperature and pressure dependence laws [19,20] but cannot be used in this mechanical study due to its brittleness leading to immediate and complete spalling.…”

“…On the contrary, Cr 2 O 3 films have well defined Raman spectra with known temperature and pressure dependence laws [19,20] but cannot be used in this mechanical study due to its brittleness leading to immediate and complete spalling. To overcome this contradiction, the usual oxygen contamination layer present in the outermost layer of CrN thin films has been used to obtain a weak but well defined Raman spectrum [18,21].…”

Influence of nitrogen flow rates on materials properties of CrN x films grown by reactive magnetron sputtering

“…Depending on nitrogen content, the d.c. magnetron sputtered CrN coatings may consist of Cr, β-Cr 2 N, c-CrN and/or mixture of these phases (Lin et al 2009). The CrN thin films were deposited by various methods such as ion source middle frequency magnetron sputtering, unbalanced magnetron sputtering (Zou et al 2009), rf reactive sputtering (Inoue et al 2009), pulsed d.c. magnetron sputtering , metal vapour vacuum arc (Chen et al 2004), arc discharge (Shen et al 2008), e-beam PVD (Conde et al 2006), hollow cathode discharge gun (Novinrooz and Seyedi 2006). The protection capability of these nitrides strongly depends on the deposition condition.…”

Growth of gallium nitride on silicon by molecular beam epitaxy incorporating a chromium nitride interlayer

“…Fig. 2(a) shows the XRD Â-2Â scan of the GaN grown with and without a CrN interlayer, in which both samples demonstrated (2 2 2), and GaN(0 0 0 4), respectively [15]. This on-axis Â-2Â scan indicates that the surface orientation was (0 0 0 2) GaN || (1 1 1) Si and (0 0 0 2) GaN || (1 1 1) CrN || (1 1 1) Si for the samples with and without CrN interlayers, respectively.…”