Investigation of Pressure Effect on Structural, Mechanical Properties and Corrosion Performance of CrN Thin Films
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Investigation of Pressure Effect on Structural, Mechanical Properties and Corrosion Performance of CrN Thin Films Jalaa Alyones 1 & Mohamad Salameh 1 & Bassam Abdallah 2 Received: 15 July 2019 / Accepted: 28 November 2019 # Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract Properties (crystallographer, mechanical and anti-corrosion) of deposited chromium nitride thin films on Silicon (100) and stainless steel (SS 304) substrates, in a direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering without annealing the substrates; have been investigated as a function of working pressure. It was observed that pressure increase induced crystallization enhancement, thickness decrease, and grain size increase and micro-hardness decrease. The corrosion resistance of the films, using the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) technique in the water solution at 50 °C, was found to decrease with pressure increase, where the film deposited at 4 mTorr, having the highest micro-hardness, showed the best corrosion behavior. The surface morphology was investigated by optical microscope before and after the corrosion. Keywords Chromium nitride . Magnetron sputtering . Crystallographer . Micro-hardness . Corrosion
1 Introduction Metal nitrides have attracted a lot of attention due to their special physical and chemical properties, such as high melting temperature and corrosion resistance, as well as their magnetic and electrical properties, for this reason the noble metals replaced by them in multiple applications in industry [1, 2]. TiN, CrN, ZrN and NbN are used in coating industries due to their mechanical, electrical, tribological and chemical properties. The TiN film of the implant surface inhibits fracture, and the TiN placed on Ti-40Nb alloy has good corrosion behavior for dental implants [3]. CrN thin films have been used in various applications such as protective layers in the food and medical Industries, automotive industry and microelectronics, as well as in corrosive and high temperature environments because of their distinctive characteristics (good corrosion behavior and high hardness)
[4]. Multiple processes exist to obtain surface coatings to improve the surface properties such as Physical Vapour Deposition [5, 6], Chemical vapor deposition [7] and solgel technique [8]. Cr-N coating may be produced by various PVD methods such as HCD (hollow cathode deposition), FCVA (filtered cathodic vacuum arc), (RF) or (DC) magnetron sputtering [9]. The advantages of magnetron sputtering method are the high deposition rate, the thin film good uniformity, the low operation temperature and the flexibility of the process parameters (substrate temperature, working pressure, distance (target- substrate), substrate bias, target power and deposition time) [10]. The change of these parameters leads to the change of both structural and mechanical properties which in turn affects corrosion resistance [11]. In this work, CrN films have been deposited by magnetron sputtering method at different working pressures of gases, in order to investigate the ef
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