Effect of substrate temperature on the growth of ternary Al–C–N thin films by reactive magnetron sputtering

• Published in: Journal of crystal growth Vol. 279; no. 3; pp. 420 - 424
• Main Authors: Ji, A.L., Du, Y., Ma, L.B., Cao, Z.X.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.06.2005; Elsevier
• Subjects: A3. Magnetron sputtering; A3. Thin film; B1. Aluminum carbonitride; B2. Hardness; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Deposition by sputtering; Exact sciences and technology; Materials science; Methods of deposition of films and coatings; film growth and epitaxy; Physics; B2. Hardness; A3. Thin film; 81.15; A3. Magnetron sputtering; 68.60.B; 68.55; B1. Aluminum carbonitride; Atomic force microscopy; Inorganic compounds; Roughness; Crystal growth from vapors; XRD; Thin films; Trigonal lattices; B1. A1uminum carbonitride; Grain size; Temperature dependence; Stacking sequence; Ternary compounds; Aluminium Carbonitrides; Hardness; Experimental study; Preferred orientation; Energy-dispersive X-ray spectra; Magnetrons; Hexagonal lattices; Morphology; Reactive sputtering; 68.60. A3. Magnetron sputtering
• ISSN: 0022-0248; 1873-5002
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jcrysgro.2005.02.053

Oxygen-free aluminum carbonitride thin films were synthesized by reactive magnetron sputtering of Al target with a gas mixture of Ar, CH 4 and N 2. The effect of substrate temperature varying from the room temperature to 400 °C was investigated, since the crystalline Al–C–N compounds can be modeled as the stacking of zigzag building blocks Al 2C 2, Al 2C and AlN. Generally, film growth proceeds preferably along the [0 0 0 l] direction, but m-plane growth makes its competitive presence in the temperature range from 50 to 260 °C, as revealed by X-ray diffraction. For the samples with a typical composition of Al 50C 13N 37, the size of crystallites, and thus the root-mean-square roughness of the film, becomes larger with increasing substrate temperature. Berkovich hardness is over 27.0 GPa for all as-deposited films and a maximum value of 33.6 GPa was measured in the sample prepared at 300 °C. These results indicated that hard Al–C–N coatings with well-controlled orientation can be fabricated by reactive magnetron sputtering at moderate substrate temperatures.