Browsing by Author "McPherson, M"

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    Synthesis and characterisation of titanium vanadium nitride thin films
    (Australian Institute of Physics, 2005-01-31) Taylor, MB; Davies, KE; Gan, BK; McKenzie, DR; Bilek, MMM; McCulloch, DG; Latella, BA; Wilksch, PA; McPherson, M; Van den Brink, RA
    Many transition metal nitrides form very hard and wear resistant thin film coatings. Alloying of transition metal nitrides creates the possibility of producing films with even higher hardness and wear resistance. In this paper we look at alloying TiN and VN utilising a dual source pulsed cathodic arc. TiN and VN both form face centred cubic structures, have similar lattice parameters and are completely miscible over the entire range in bulk form . Of interest is the correlation between intrinsic stress, indentation hardness, microstructure and optical properties of Ti(1-x)VxN films over a range of compositions from x = 0 to x = 1. Previous work by Knotek [using magnetron sputtering showed that thin films of Ti(1-x)VxN made using a metal target of 25 atomic percent V and 75 atomic percent Ti showed the best wear resistance in a pin-on-disc test and the highest Vickers microhardness. In this work we vary the ratio of pulses applied to each cathode in the dual source filtered cathodic arc system to change the composition of the resultant film in a controllable manner. In this way, the properties over a range of composition can be evaluated. In addition to hardness, this work will explore the variations in optical properties of the alloys. Nitrides frequently exhibit attractive colours; for instance, the colour of TiN thin films deposited by plasma immersion ion implantation has been found to vary widely with the conditions of deposition. However, little has been published on the optical properties of the Ti(1-x)VxN alloy.