AVS 47th International Symposium
    Surface Engineering Tuesday Sessions
       Session SE-TuM

Paper SE-TuM7
Characterization of Cr@sub 2@N/CrN Multilayer Coatings Produced by Ion-Assisted Reactive Magnetron Sputtering

Tuesday, October 3, 2000, 10:20 am, Room 201

Session: Interface Engineering and Graded Films: Structure and Characterization
Presenter: S.M. Aouadi, University of Nebraska
Authors: S.M. Aouadi, University of Nebraska
K.C. Wong, University of British Columbia, Canada
K.A.R. Mitchell, University of British Columbia, Canada
S.L. Rohde, University of Nebraska
Correspondent: Click to Email
A series of monolithic and multilayer coatings of chromium nitride with various compositions and architectures were deposited at low temperatures (<200°C) on silicon substrates using ion-assisted reactive magnetron sputtering. Real-time in-situ ellipsometry was used to control the deposition process. The multilayer coatings were fabricated with a CrN to Cr@sub 2@N ratio in the range from 1 to 12. In addition, the deposition parameters were altered to obtain interfacial geometries that varied from sharp to various levels of grading. The deposited coatings were characterized post-deposition using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Rutherford backscattering (RBS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and ex-situ spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE). The crystal phases and textures were identified using XRD. The film composition, the periodic structure of the multilayers and the interface type were determined from RBS, XPS and SE measurements. To compare the mechanical properties of the coatings, their hardness was evaluated using a nanoindenter. Most coatings gave hardness values in excess of 20 GPa.