Structural and mechanical properties of Si-doped CrN coatings deposited by magnetron sputtering technique

Anand Vyas; Ahmed Aliyu

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e13461

Structural and mechanical properties of Si-doped CrN coatings deposited by magnetron sputtering technique

Heliyon. 2023 Feb 3;9(2):e13461. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e13461. eCollection 2023 Feb.

Authors

Anand Vyas¹, Ahmed Aliyu^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Division of Science, Engineering and Health Studies, SPEED, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China.
² Department of Chemical Engineering, Federal University Wukari, Taraba State, Nigeria.
³ Department of Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.

Abstract

This study successfully deposited Si-doped CrN coatings onto Si (100) substrate by direct current magnetron sputtering. The concentration of Si in the CrSiN coatings was varied by changing the Si target current during deposition. The microstructural and mechanical properties were determined by employing X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, and nanoindentation test. According to the results, the coating with 3.3 at.% Si contents (CrSiN-2) show an increase and decrease in the crystallite size and coating surface roughness, respectively, leading to solid solution hardening with an optimum hardness and elastic modulus of 21.37 GPa and 205.68 GPa, respectively. With continued Si addition, the coating roughness increased and the mechanical properties gradually decreased and attained 184.08 GPa and 18.95 GPa for the elastic modulus and hardness of the coating with a maximum Si concentration of 9.2 at.% (CrSiN-5).

Keywords: AFM, Atomic force microscopy; CrN coatings; CrN, Chromium nitride; CrSiN coating; CrSiN, Chromium silicon nitride; Magnetron sputtering; Mechanical properties; Microstructure; SEM, Scanning electron microscopy; Si (100) substrate; Si, Silicon; XPS, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy; XRD, X-ray diffraction.