Mechanical properties of amorphous carbon nitride thin films prepared by reactive magnetron sputter-deposition

Abstract

Nanoindentation hardness and compressive stress in amorphous carbon nitride thin films prepared by unbalanced magnetron sputter-deposition were studied. The coating hardness and compressive stress were found to be strongly dependent on processing parameters such as substrate bias and nitrogen partial pressure. Under optimized deposition conditions, carbon nitride thin films with nanoindentation hardness about 25 GPa have been coated onto Si wafers and M2 steels. A strong correlation between coating hardness and compressive stress in the coating was observed.

Manufacturing and Characterization of a Carbon-Based Amorphous (a-CNX) Coating Material

“…High energy ion bombardment with higher ion flux to the substrate leads to dense microstructure and high internal stress in carbon nitride films [63]. In the absence of applied negative bias voltage and at high process pressure (* 3 Pa), the incoming ion flux as well as the energy of that ion flux is not high enough to remove voids or porosities entirely from microstructure [64]. This results in low mass density and low internal stress of the as-deposited thick a-CN X coating.…”

Studies of diamond-like carbon (DLC) films deposited on stainless steel substrate with Si/SiC intermediate layers

“…At higher biases, the kinetic energy of the ions efficiently eliminates voids, asperities and rough particles by higher surface atomic mobility during film growth and preferential sputtering and etching of topographically higher parts of the surface. [23] Hence, smoother surfaces can be achieved at higher bias. The high RMS roughness of DLC prepared at lower bias is due to the formation of small clusters on the surface.…”

Preparation of Sn-doped Ga2O3 thin films and their solar-blind photoelectric detection performance

“…The Ga 2 O 3 film prepared by the RFMS method is amorphous, and the obtained devices can exhibit obvious photoelectric response. For example, Zhang et al [22] fabricated a deep ultraviolet photoelectric detector with a metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) structure based on the amorphous Ga 2 O 3 film prepared by RFMS. The fabricated device shows ultra-low dark current (1.41 × 10 −11 A), where the response rate is 1.77 A/W, and the response time is 114 ms.…”