The Effects of Substrate Temperature and Bias on the Structural,Mechanical and Tribological Properties of TiC films deposited by Magnetron Assisted Pulsed Laser Deposition

摘要

Titanium carbide films have been deposited using a hybrid magnetron sputtering/pulsed laser deposition technique.One set of films was deposited at substrate temperatures ranging from room temperature to 600 deg C with no substrate bias,and a second set was deposited at 400 deg C bias voltages up to -150V.X-ray diffraction,X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy,and electron microscopy were employed for structural and compositional characterization of the films,and nano-indentation hardness testing and pin-on-disc wear tests were used to evaluate the mechanical and tribological properties.All the TiC films deposited without substrate bias were highly crystalline.The films deposited with bias had significantly reduced crystallinity and non-stoichiometric film compositions.The hardness of the TiC films increased with substrate temperature from 8 GPa at room temperature to 18 GPa at 600 deg C,whereas the biased films had a maximum hardness of 12 GPa.The wear test data showed significantly lower friction and longer wear life for the-150V biased film.