Effects of substrate temperature on the structure and mechanical properties of (TiVCrZrHf)N coatings

The present paper reports the influence of growth conditions on the characteristics of (TiVCrZrHf)N films prepared by rf reactive magnetron sputtering at various substrate temperatures. The nitrogen content is observed to decrease with increasing substrate temperature. The X-ray diffraction results indicate that all (TiVCrZrHf)N films are simple face centered cubic (FCC) structures. Initially, there is an obvious decrease followed by an increase in grain size with the increase in substrate temperature. The lower part of the microstructure has an amorphous structure. A nano grain structure (size similar to 1 nm) with a random orientation is also observed above the amorphous structure. The fully dense columnar structure with an fcc crystal phase then starts to develop. Extreme hardness of around 48 GPa is obtained in the present alloy design. (C) 2011 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.