IUVSTA 15th International Vacuum Congress (IVC-15), AVS 48th International Symposium (AVS-48), 11th International Conference on Solid Surfaces (ICSS-11)
    Surface Engineering Tuesday Sessions
       Session SE-TuA

Paper SE-TuA1
Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Zr-Si-N Films Prepared by r.f.- Reactive Sputtering

Tuesday, October 30, 2001, 2:00 pm, Room 132

Session: Hard and Superhard Coatings
Presenter: M. Nose, Northwestern University
Authors: M. Nose, Northwestern University
W.A. Chiou, University of California at Irvine
M. Zhou, Osaka University, Japan
T. Mae, Toyama National College of Technology, Japan
M. Meshii, Northwestern University
Correspondent: Click to Email
ZrN and ZrSiN films were prepared in an r.f. sputtering apparatus which has a pair of targets facing each other (referred to as the Facing Target -type r.f. Sputtering). Films were deposited on silicon wafer without bias application nor substrate heating in order to examine only the effect of silicon addition to transition metal nitride films. The transmission electron microscopy studies were carried out in addition to XRD. For the high resolution TEM observation, the field emission type transmission electron microscope (FE-TEM) was used, which provides a point-to-point resolution of 0.1nm. The samples were observed both parallel and perpendicular to the film surface, which were in-plane and cross-sectional view, respectively. In order to investigate the relationship between mechanical properties and microstructure of films, the hardness was measured by a nano-indentation system at room temperature. The load was selected to produce an impression depth below 60nm (not more than 5% of film thickness) so that the influence from the substrate can be neglected. The contents of zirconium, nitrogen and silicon of the films were determined by ZAF method with EPMA. A study of their microstructure and mechanical properties has provided as follows: (1) The hardness and Young's modulus increase with small Si additions reaching maximum values of 35GPa (at 3%Si) and 370GPa (at 5% Si), respectively; (2) The hardest films containing 3%Si did not consist of nano-crystals but clear columnar crystals in the range of 10 to 25nm; (3) The increment of hardness with small amount of Si atoms can be attributed to the solution hardening by Si to ZrN lattice; (4) In the case of ZrSiN films deposited by r.f. sputtering without bias application nor substrate heating, the available result did not ensure the presence of ZrN nano-crystals embedded in Si@sub 3@N@sub 4@ matrix.