Influence of the water vapor concentration into the reactive plasma during the deposition of chromium oxynitrides layers on steel

Abstract

The aim of this work is to study the stoichiometry of chromium oxynitride thin films deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering in presence of air with various relative humidities. Ion Beam Analysis methods: RBS (Rutherford Backscattering Spectroscopy) and resonant nuclear reaction (RNRA) were used to determine the thickness and the composition of the films. Hydrogen and nitrogen profiles were obtained by RNRA and Tof-SIMS. The chemical bonds were investigated by XPS and LEEIXS. The chromium metallic and chromium compounds concentrations were measured versus the flow and relative humidity of the air. During sputtering in metallic mode, Cr2O3 stoichiometry is observed with low contents of CrN, CrO2 and (CrO2)3-N whereas in compound mode the CrO2 stoichiometry predominates.

Date of Award	2003
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Namur
Supervisor	Franz BODART (Supervisor), Guy Terwagne (Jury), Robert Sporken (Jury), Stephane Lucas (Jury) & Patrick Bertrand (Jury)