Research On Nanocomposition Ti-Si-N Thin Films Prepared By Magnetron Sputtering

Titanium silicon nitride (Ti-Si-N) nano-composite film is one of the promising hard materials, which has been the focus of the field of hard films due to its excellent mechanical and thermodynamic properties. Up to now, most researchers paid attention to prepared Ti-Si-N films on hard substrates. But there are rare reports of their preparation on the soft substrates.Our work is aimed to prepare Ti-Si-N films on soft metal Al substrates. At the same time, we introduced to Si(100) substrate in order to characterization conveniently, and were carried out the chemical composition and physical behavior by EPMA, AFM,XRD, nanoindenter, Friction and wear machine and scratch tester. We have the results as follows:a) For JGP-280 single-target magnetron sputtering system, we systematically investigated the effect of substrate temperature. The temperature was regulated to optimize to 300℃. The maximum hardness of the Ti-Si-N films is 20.96 GPa at the contents of Si is 18.74%.b) For JGP-450A three-target magnetron sputtering system, Ti-Si-N films were deposited onto Al substrates after depositing a buffer layer of Ti on top of the substrate. The analysis results indicate that all the films adhesion well to the Al substrate, and the hardness of the Ti-Si-N films enhance with the increasing of the Si content, and shows a maximum hardness of the Ti-Si-N films is 27.2 GPa at the Si RF power is 80 W and the flow rate of N2 is 15 sccm. The surface of the films becomes better with increasing flow rate of N2 and power of Si target. In our result, the RMS roughness is optimized to 10.96 nm which also shows the best adhesion force of 1800 g and smallest friction coefficient of 0.15. The power of Si target and flow rate of N2 play important roles in the process of depositing Ti-Si-N films. What's more, imposed a negative voltage on the substrate can enhance the cohesive force between the film and substrate.