Using ammonia for reactive magnetron sputtering, a possible alternative to HiPIMS?

Louis Rassinfosse, Julien L. Colaux, David Pilloud, Alexandre Nominé, Nikolay Tumanov, Stéphane Lucas, Jean Jacques Pireaux, Emile Haye

Résultats de recherche: Contribution à un journal/une revueArticleRevue par des pairs

Résumé

While most of the works devoted to the synthesis of transition metal nitride coating by magnetron sputtering use N2 as reactive gas, an alternative method is proposed, namely using ammonia (NH3) as reactive gas. The magnetron sputtering of chromium in Ar/NH3 atmosphere is studied and compared to Ar/N2 atmosphere, with in situ (hysteresis curve, target voltage measurement, optical emission spectroscopy, deposition rate) and ex situ characterizations (XPS, XRD, SEM, RBS, UV–Vis, nanoindentation, 4-points probe). It appears that ammonia as a reactive gas influences the optical, electrical and mechanical properties as well as the microstructure of the thin films in a very similar way to HiPIMS with N2 reactive gas; improved mechanical properties are obtained, attributed to a change of the morphology, from columnar-like to nanocrystalline.

langue originaleAnglais
Numéro d'article144176
journalApplied Surface Science
Volume502
Les DOIs
Etat de la publicationPublié - 1 févr. 2020

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