Microstructural characterisation of Cr/CrN nano-multilayers produced by unbalanced magnetron sputtering

摘要

The production of Cr/CrN nano-multilayers through the unbalanced magnetron sputtering (UBM) technique was presented, and the influence of the unbalance degree on microstructure was studied. X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used to study phase formation in the coatings, and the presence of a multilayer structure was confirmed through transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Total thickness was measured through profilometry and it was assessed using grazing incidence X-ray reflectometry (XRR), which was also used for density, bilayer period and interface roughness measurements. The sin~2 ψ method was used to study residual stresses presence. Results showed that the unbalance degree did not significantly influence the orientation of the multilayer planes, but it had an influence on peak positions, which indicated the presence of residual stresses. The density was also influenced by the unbalance degree, mainly due to ionic bombardment variation with each unbalance degree use.