AVS 49th International Symposium
    Surface Engineering Tuesday Sessions
       Session SE+NS-TuM

Paper SE+NS-TuM7
Comparison Studies of Titanium Silicon Carbide Hard Coatings Deposited by Pulsed Laser Deposition and Magentron Sputtering Assisted Pulsed Laser Deposition

Tuesday, November 5, 2002, 10:20 am, Room C-111B

Session: Nanocomposite and Nanolayered Coatings
Presenter: A.R.P. Ayalasomayajula, University of New Hampshire
Authors: A.R.P. Ayalasomayajula, University of New Hampshire
J.E.R. Krzanowski, University of New Hampshire
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Titanium silicon carbide films have been grown by Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) as well as Magnetron Sputtering Assisted Pulsed Laser Deposition (MSAPLD) on Si (111) and 440C steel substrates at different substrate temperatures and at different substrate bias at 400@super o@C. Experiments are also conducted with different laser powers for C ablation and sputtering powers for TiSi@sub 2@ content in the deposited films to investigate the effect of C and TiSi@sub 2@ mechanical and tribological properties. X-ray Diffraction has been employed to find the crystal structure and orientation of the deposited films. Film morphology and roughness are measured by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) techniques, respectively. The film hardness was measured by nano-indentation, while x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was used to estimate the film composition using depth profiling. The residual stress of the deposited was measured by 2D-area General Area Detector Diffraction System. TiSiC films deposited by PLD have shown reasonably high hardness values (37GPa) compared to TiSi@sub 2@C films by MSAPLD which have shown hardness values 30GPa at 400@super o@C. The hardness is correlated with residual stress of the deposited films, where we have observed high tensile stress for MSAPLD films leading to decrease in hardness values. Tribological studies have also been conducted to evaluate the friction and wear properties of these films. The mechanisms of hardness enhancement and its relation to tribological properties has also been explained.