Growth of Ti-C nanocomposite films by reactive high power impulse magnetron sputtering under industrial conditions

• Titanium carbide (TiC) films were deposited employing high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) and direct current magnetron sputtering (DCMS) in an Ar-C2H2 atmosphere of various compositions. Analysis of the structural, bonding and compositional characteristics revealed that the deposited films are either TiC and hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H) nanocomposites, nanocrystalline TiC, or Ti/Tic, depending on the C/Ti ratio. It was found that Ti-C films grown by HiPIMS show a C/Ti ratio of close to 1 for a wide C2H2 flow range (4-15 sccm), with free C ranging from 0 to 20%. Thus, films ranging from near stoichiometric single phase TiC to TiC/a-C:H nanocomposites can be synthesized. This was not the case for DCMS, where films grown using similar deposition rates as for HiPIMS formed larger fractions of amorphous C matrix, thus being nanocomposites in the same C2H2 (above 4 sccm) flow range. For a C/Ti ratio of 1 the resistivity is low (4-8 x 10(2) mu Omega cm) for the HiPIMS films, and high (>100x 10(2) mu Omega cm) for the DCMS films. The hardness also shows a big difference with 20-27 and 6-10 GPa for HiPIMS and DCMS grown films, respectively.

Nyckelord

HiPIMS

HPPMS

Reactive magnetron sputtering

TiC

a-C:H Nanocomposite

NATURAL SCIENCES

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