Study Of Deposition Technique Of TiVN Thin Films By Plasma Enhanced Magnetron Sputtering

Plasma enhanced magnetron sputtering?PEMS?greatly increases the ionization rate of conventional magnetron sputtering,which is beneficial to obtain the films with good compactness,excellent mechanical properties and low residual stress.In order to further improve the mechanical properties and tribological performance of TiVN thin films,the influence of substrate bias current?Is?on the microstructure and properties of the TiN films deposited by plasma enhanced magnetron sputtering,as well as the effect of the V content on the properties of TiVN thin films was studied.It was shown that TiN films with a nearly stoichiometric composition are produced in the whole range of I_s.With the increase of I_s from 0.1 to 3.0 A,the microstructure of the films is transformed from a loose columnar microstructure into a denser and featureless microstructure.TiN films deposited at the whole range of I_s show the preferred orientation of TiN?111?.The grain size of the films is abruptly decreased from44 to 11 nm with I_s increased from 0.1 to 1.5 A,but the effect of I_s on the grain size becomes unobvious when I_s is above 1.5 A.As I_s is increased from 0.1 to 1.5 A,the hardness and effective Young's modulus of the films are significantly improved while L_C1 is decreased;but when I_s is further increased,the mechanical properties and L_C1stays essentially unchanged;however,L_C2 is decreased as I_s increases from 0.1 to 6.0A.When I_s increased from 0.1 to 3.0 A,the wear rate of the TiN-coated samples is distinctly decreased to 9.4×10^-16 m³/?N·m?;however,the wear rate is gradually increased with further increasing Is.The Ti_1-xV_xN films prepared by PEMS shows a dense micro structure in the whole range of V content;and the compactness of Ti1-xVxN films shows little dependence on the V doping content,as x increases in films.When x increases from 0 to 1,the deposition rate is first increased and then decreased.All Ti_1-xV_x N films exhibits B1-NaCl structure and with increasing x,the intensities of?111?peak and?200?peak are gradually decreased while that of?311?peak is increased gradually.As x is increased from 0 to 0.71,the hardness,Young's modulus and brittleness of the TiN film increase first and then decrease;but further increasing x,the mechanical properties of the film change little.As x increases from 0 to 0.61,the wear rate of Ti1-xVxN film samples is fluctuated slightly,all better than 2.1×10^-15 m³/?N·m?;however,the continued increase of x leads to a gradual increase in the wear rate of the Ti_1-xV_xN-coated samples.