Structural and Mechanical Properties of CrN Thin Films Deposited on Si Substrate by Using Magnetron Techniques

Chromium nitride thin films are known for their good mechanical properties. We present the characteristics of ultrathin chromium nitride films under 400 nm thickness deposited on silicon substrates by direct current and high-power impulse magnetron sputtering techniques. The methods of investigation of the CrN films were scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and nanoindentation. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed using AFM and SEM images by fractal dimension, surface roughness and gray-level co-occurrence matrix methods. Our results show that using magnetron techniques, ultrathin CrN films with excellent mechanical properties were obtained, characterized by values of Young’s modulus between 140 GPa and 250 GPa for the samples obtained using high-power impulse magneton sputtering (HiPIMS) and between 240 GPa and 370 GPa for the samples obtained using direct current sputtering (DC). Stiffness measurements also reveal the excellent mechanical properties of the investigated samples, where the samples obtained using HiPIMS sputtering had stiffness values between 125 N/m and 132 N/m and the samples obtained using DC sputtering had stiffness values between 110 N/m and 119 N/m.