Abstract:The relationship between structural, chemical and mechanical properties of nanocrystalline TiC / amorphous C thin films was studied. Thin films were deposited by DC magnetron sputtering on oxidized silicon substrates in argon at 25 C° and 0.25 Pa. The input power of the carbon target was 150 W, the input power of the titanium target was varied between 15 and 50 W. It was found that all thin films consist of a few nanosized columnar TiC crystallites embedded in carbon matrix. The average size of TiC crystallites and the thickness of the carbon matrix have been found to correlate with Ti content. The mechanical properties of the films have been strictly dependent on their structure. The highest values of the nanohardness (~ 66 GPa) and Young's modulus (~ 401 GPa) were observed for the film with the highest TiC content which was prepared at 50 W of Ti target. The relationship between structural, chemical and mechanical properties of nanocrystalline TiC / amorphous C (TiC/a:C) thin films was studied. Thin films were deposited by DC magnetron sputtering on oxidized silicon (Si/SiO 2 ) substrates in argon at 25 C° and 0.25 Pa. The input power of the carbon target was kept at constant value of 150 W while the input power of the titanium target was varied between 15 and 50 W.It was found that all thin films consist of a few nanosized columnar TiC crystallites embedded in carbon matrix. The average size of TiC crystallites and the thickness of the carbon matrix have been found to correlate with Ti content in the films. The mechanical properties of the films have been strictly dependent on their structure. The highest values of the nanohardness (~ 66 GPa) and Young's modulus (~ 401 GPa) were observed for the film with the highest TiC content which was prepared at the largest input power of Ti target.The recommended keywords are: TiC/a:C, magnetron sputtering, structure, mechanical properties, XPS Looking forward your positive answer.
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SummaryThe nanocomposite structures will be applied as protective materials or hard coating for multifunctional, industrial and engineering applications [6][7][8]. In previous studies only a few preparation methods for TiC films have been investigated in details. One of them, the vacuum deposition provides great flexibility for manipulating material chemistry and structure, resulting in films and coatings with special properties TiC/a:C thin films were deposited by DC magnetron sputtering at 25 °C in argon atmosphere. The films had a thickness of 400 nm and consisted of nanocrystalline TiC and amorphous carbon phases. The average size of TiC crystallites and the thickness of the amorphous carbon matrix strongly depended on deposition parameters, namely on Ti target power. Films deposited at 15 W Ti power consisted of few nanometers small TiC nanocrystallites embedded in a few ten nanometers thick carbon matrix. The increase of Ti content (with increasing Ti power) resulted in larger TiC nanocrystallites and a thinner carbon spacing between t...