Effect of substrate temperature on the properties of reactively sputtered TiN/NbN multilayers

Abstract

TiN/NbN multilayer coatings were deposited with various substrate temperatures by DC reactive magnetron sputtering method onto Si (111) and glass substrates. The effect of substrate temperature on the structural and optical properties of TiN/NbN multilayers was investigated by X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Field emission scanning electron microscopy and Photoluminescence measurements. The composition was analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. X-ray diffraction results showed that the layers crystallized in cubic structure for TiN and hexagonal structure for NbN. It was found that grain size increased with increase in substrate temperature. The surface morphology of the TiN/NbN thin films showed a dense and smooth surface with substrate temperature upto 200 °C but after 300 °C, the grains became larger and coarse surface was observed. The TiN/NbN multilayer coatings exhibited the characteristic peaks centered at 180, 210 and 560 cm -1. Red band emission peaks were observed in the wavelength range of 700-710 nm.

Hardness Enhancement and Corrosion Current of Multilayer Coatings Based on Titanium Nitride

“…Several structures have been developed for superhard and ultrahard nanostructured coatings such as: (1) nanocomposites coatings [4,5], made for instance by co-sputtering of two or more targets in an atmosphere of argon and nitrogen; (2) nanoscale multilayers [6][7][8], or superlattices, where layers of titanium nitride and other nitrides with wavelengths less than 10 nm are superposed one on the top of other; (3) graded metal nitrides [9], where the relative content of two metals changes gradually in the coating.…”