Nanohardness of a Ti Thin Film and Its Interface Deposited by an Electron Beam on a 304 SS Substrate

Abstract

The results of nanohardness measurements at a film surface and film-substrate interface are presented and discussed. An electron beam device was used to deposit a Ti film on a 304 stainless steel (304 SS) substrate. The diluted interface was obtained by thermal activated atomic diffusion. The Ti film and Ti film-304 SS interface were analyzed by energy dispersive spectrometry and were observed using atomic force microscopy. The nanohardness of the Ti film-304 SS system was measured by a nanoindentation technique. The results showed the Ti film-304 SS interface had a higher hardness value than the Ti film and 304 SS substrate. The Ti film surface had a lower hardness due to the presence of a TiO 2 thin layer.Introduction The surface modifications of materials were shown to be of great technological importance in the last century. In spite of the great developments in this area, the characterization techniques for the mechanical properties of surfaces and interfaces are still not very efficient.Steel materials with modified surfaces are widely used in a large variety of important technological applications, including cutting tools, machine components and molding dies, where their surfaces can be submitted to physical and/or chemical erosion. Therefore, adequate and well-bonded coatings on steel surfaces are desirable in such applications, to improve the mechanical performance and to increase the useful life against abrasion and corrosion [1][2][3][4][5][6][7].The determination of the mechanical properties of thin hard films has gained more importance recently in both research and industry [8,9]. Nanoindentation is a key technique for the determination of the mechanical properties of thin films, such as hardness (H) and elastic modulus (E), and for studying the strain behavior. For this reason, the nanoindentation technique is applied to determine the elastic and plastic properties of thin films. The nanohardness measurement is a precise indentation method to register continuously the course of the applied force versus the penetration depth. Another measurement type is cross-sectional nanoindentation, which has important advantages in relation to delamination tests. It is a quick method to produce controlled delamination of thin films for a wide range of materials and it provides direct observation of the interfacial crack path in cross-section [10]. It has been shown that by combining scanning force microscopy with nanoindentation it is possible to carry out highly localized

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