Nitrogen-doped bcc-Cr films: Combining ceramic hardness with metallic toughness and conductivity

We report the first results on nanostructured N-doped bcc-Cr films exhibiting the unique combination of ceramic hardness with metallic toughness and electrical conductivity at unexpectedly low N concentrations, ~5at.%. The Cr:N films are deposited at 200°C in N2/Ar mixtures by high-power pulsed magn...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scripta materialia 2016-09, Vol.122, p.40-44
Main Authors: Greczynski, G., Lu, J., Tengstrand, O., Petrov, I., Greene, J.E., Hultman, L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ceramics
CrN
Electrical resistivity
Film growth
Hardness
HIPIMS
Ion mass spectrometry
Magnetron sputtering
Nanostructure
Resistivity
Solid solutions
Thin films
Toughness
Transition-metal nitrides
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Summary:We report the first results on nanostructured N-doped bcc-Cr films exhibiting the unique combination of ceramic hardness with metallic toughness and electrical conductivity at unexpectedly low N concentrations, ~5at.%. The Cr:N films are deposited at 200°C in N2/Ar mixtures by high-power pulsed magnetron sputtering using tunable time-domain control of Cr+ and Cr2+ ion fluxes incident at the film growth surface. Subplanted N atoms impede annealing of metal-ion induced point defects and hinder bcc-Cr grain growth, resulting in a material with a nearly isotropic nanostructure and atomically smooth surface, rather than typical Cr:N solid solutions consisting of faceted microcolumns. [Display omitted]
ISSN:1359-6462
1872-8456
1872-8456
DOI:10.1016/j.scriptamat.2016.05.011