Residual stress, mechanical and microstructure properties of multilayer Mo2N/CrN coating produced by R.F Magnetron discharge

We have investigated the effect of the period thickness of the multilayer Mo2N/CrN deposited on Si substrate produced by reactive magnetron sputtering. Mo2N presents a face centered cubic structure and CrN an orthorhombic one. The residual stress of the coatings was determined by the measurement of the substrate curvature. The microstructure of the multilayer was investigated from the X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy (cross section images). The residual stresses resulting from the deposition of the different bi-layer thickness were measured and correlated to the structural properties of the coating as well as the nanoindentation analysis of the coating. The stresses are compressive and tensile for the individual Mo2N and CrN layer respectively. The result shows that an increase of the multilayer coatings Mo2N/CrN thicknesses induce an increase of the hardness and the elastic modulus, in the other hand the tensile stress increases. The shift of the XRD diffraction peak (1 1 1) of Mo2N at high angle which means the reduction of the residual stress is in good agreement with the residual stresses measurements

Correlation between mechanical and microstructural properties of molybdenum nitride thin films deposited on silicon by reactive RF magnetron discharge

Molybdenum nitride thin films were deposited on (100) silicon substrates by R.F. magnetron sputtering of a Mo target in a (Ar-N2) gas mixtures. The films were studied by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray diffraction. The nanomechanical properties have been determined by nanoindentation and Peak-Force Quantitative Nanomechanical Mapping (PF-QNM). The total internal stresses were determined by curvature measurements and the Stoney formula. As thin film composition influences the morphology, the stress state and the mechanical properties, modifications are expected in this study where the nitrogen content is tuned. The film exhibits a polycrystalline structure with preferred orientation along (111) plane. The increase of the nitrogen content in the coating (N/Mo =1.1) induces a broadening of the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the (111) diffraction peak, which is attributed to the presence of smaller crystallites. The residual stress and mechanical properties variation were correlated to the structural transition from γ-Mo2N to hexagonal and cubic MoN. The results show a good agreement between the nanomechanical properties obtained by nanoindentation and PF-QNM

Nanocolumnar TiN thin film growth by oblique angle sputter-deposition: Experiments vs. simulations

Nanostructured columnar titanium nitride (TiN) thin films were produced by oblique angle deposition using reactive magnetron sputtering. The influence of the angular distribution of the incoming particle flux on the resulting filmmorphology (columntilt angle, porosity, surface roughness) was studied by varying the inclination angle α of the substrate at two different working pressures, 0.3 and 0.5 Pa. The microstructural features and columns tilt angles βexp determined experimentally were compared to those simulated from two kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) models. With increasing pressure, the TiN columns were found to be less defined but no significant changes in βexp were revealed. Both KMC models satisfactorily reproduced the experimental findings, the agreement being closer at 0.5 Pa. The evolution of β angle is also discussed with respect to the resulting incidence angle θres of the incoming flux, this latter quantity accounting for the local incidence angle of individual particles,which may greatly differ fromthe geometrical angle α, especially at highworking pressure due to the incoming particle – gas collisions. Crossover phenomena between the 0.3 and 0.5 Pa series were revealed from the evolution of the film resistivity, as well as simulated layer density and surface roughness versus α angle.This work has been performed within the M.ERA-NET project MC2 “Multi-scale Computational-driven design of novel hard nanostructured Coatings” and funded by the French ANR program (Project No. ANR-13-MERA-0002-02). BB acknowledges the financial support from the Algerian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research through the grant n°173 of the PNE 2016-17 program

Abstracts of 1st International Conference on Computational & Applied Physics

This book contains the abstracts of the papers presented at the International Conference on Computational & Applied Physics (ICCAP’2021) Organized by the Surfaces, Interfaces and Thin Films Laboratory (LASICOM), Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University Saad Dahleb Blida 1, Algeria, held on 26–28 September 2021. The Conference had a variety of Plenary Lectures, Oral sessions, and E-Poster Presentations. Conference Title: 1st International Conference on Computational & Applied PhysicsConference Acronym: ICCAP’2021Conference Date: 26–28 September 2021Conference Location: Online (Virtual Conference)Conference Organizer: Surfaces, Interfaces, and Thin Films Laboratory (LASICOM), Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University Saad Dahleb Blida 1, Algeria