Characterization of Ti-Zr-N coating films by reactive sputtering method

Ti–Zr–N films were deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering method on SUS304 stainless steel substrate. These nitride coatings were characterized using some spectroscopic methods such as XRD, EDX and XPS, and the hardness of these nitride films were interpreted by relating to characterization results. The hardness of the film, which has 30% of Zr/(Zr+Ti) and 45 atom% of nitrogen, is 2910 Hv of the highest value in them. The reason obtained the film with high hardness is attributable that the lattice has the large stress according to dissolved zirconium atoms in nitrides. However, if mixed atom having higher binding energy of the core electrons with increasing nitrogen content, that is, atom having the strong bonding cobalently to nitrogen can be found, we can obtain the film with higer hardness.