Growth Mechanisms and the Effects of Deposition Parameters on the Structure and Properties of High Entropy Film by Magnetron Sputtering

Yanxia Liang; Peipei Wang; Yufei Wang; Yijia Dai; Zhaoyi Hu; Denis E Tranca; Radu Hristu; Stefan G Stanciu; Antonela Toma; George A Stanciu; Xingjun Wang; Engang Fu

doi:10.3390/ma12183008

Growth Mechanisms and the Effects of Deposition Parameters on the Structure and Properties of High Entropy Film by Magnetron Sputtering

Materials (Basel). 2019 Sep 17;12(18):3008. doi: 10.3390/ma12183008.

Authors

Yanxia Liang¹, Peipei Wang², Yufei Wang³, Yijia Dai⁴, Zhaoyi Hu⁵, Denis E Tranca⁶, Radu Hristu⁷, Stefan G Stanciu⁸, Antonela Toma⁹, George A Stanciu¹⁰, Xingjun Wang¹¹, Engang Fu¹²

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. yxliang@pku.edu.cn.
² State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. ppwang@pku.edu.cn.
³ State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. yfwang1@pku.edu.cn.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. daiyijia02@gmail.com.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. zyhu1@pku.edu.cn.
⁶ Center for Microscopy-Microanalysis and Information Processing, University Politehnica of Bucharest, 060042 Bucharest, Romania. denis_emanuil.tranca@upb.ro.
⁷ Center for Microscopy-Microanalysis and Information Processing, University Politehnica of Bucharest, 060042 Bucharest, Romania. hristu_radu@yahoo.com.
⁸ Center for Microscopy-Microanalysis and Information Processing, University Politehnica of Bucharest, 060042 Bucharest, Romania. sgstanciu@yahoo.com.
⁹ Center for Microscopy-Microanalysis and Information Processing, University Politehnica of Bucharest, 060042 Bucharest, Romania. antonela2222@yahoo.com.
¹⁰ Center for Microscopy-Microanalysis and Information Processing, University Politehnica of Bucharest, 060042 Bucharest, Romania. stanciu@physics.pub.ro.
¹¹ State Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Communication Systems and Networks, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. xjwang@pku.edu.cn.
¹² State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Physics and Technology, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. efu@pku.edu.cn.

Abstract

Despite intense research on high entropy films, the mechanism of film growth and the influence of key factors remain incompletely understood. In this study, high entropy films consisting of five elements (FeCoNiCrAl) with columnar and nanometer-scale grains were prepared by magnetron sputtering. The high entropy film growth mechanism, including the formation of the amorphous domain, equiaxial nanocrystalline structure and columnar crystal was clarified by analyzing the microstructure in detail. Besides, the impacts of the important deposition parameters including the substrate temperature, the powder loaded in the target, and the crystal orientation of the substrate on the grain size and morphology, phase structure, crystallinity and elemental uniformity were revealed. The mechanical properties of high entropy films with various microstructure features were investigated by nanoindentation. With the optimized grain size and microstructure, the film deposited at 350 °C using a power of 100 W exhibits the highest hardness of 11.09 GPa. Our findings not only help understanding the mechanisms during the high entropy film deposition, but also provide guidance in manufacturing other novel high entropy films.

Keywords: deposition mechanism; high entropy film; magnetron sputtering; nanocrystal.

Abstract

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