Characterization of the hardness and the substrate fluxes during reactive magnetron sputtering of TiN

Aiming for enhanced mechanical properties, materials are coated with thin films. However, despite all efforts, basic relations between mechanical properties of the thin film and its intrinsic properties, i.e. stochiometry, microstructure, and crystallographic orientation are still relatively unclear. TiN thin films were grown by means of reactive magnetron sputter deposition. By varying the target–substrate distance and the N2-flow, a relation between the resulting thin film hardness and the ion, momentum, and energy flux towards the substrate during deposition is investigated.