A Study on Magnetic Filter Controlling TiN Films Prepared by Arc Ion Plating

TiN thin films were deposited by Arc Ion Plating(AIP) with or without Magnetic Filter(AIP or MFAIP) on silicon(Si) and high-speed steel(HSS) substrates,respectively. Scanning Electron Microscope(SEM),X-ray Diffraction(XRD),nanoindentation and microscratch tests were applied for microstructure and property investigation. SEM data showed that the AIP films are plagued with macro-particles(MPs),while the MFAIP films have no or less MPs.XRD showed that the MFAIP films have more obvious preferred orientation at (111) than the AIP films.Scratch Crack Propagation Resistance(CPRs) was introduced to evaluate the film adhesion properties in a scratch test.MFAIP films had higher adhesion.AIP films were susceptible to failure as the CPRs was lower.The MFAIP films had higher hardness than the AIP ones, due to the reason of less MPs in MFAIP films and more obvious preferred orientation.lt was proposed that the MPs were effectively removed with the magnetic filter, so the properties of the MFAIP films were greatly improved.