TiN coating to three-dimensional materials by PBII using vacuum titanium arc plasma

Summary form only given. Plasma-based ion implantation (PBII) is a promising method for modifying the surface properties of materials in order to improve wear resistance and hardness in engineering fields. Our PBII facility for obtaining metal ions consists of a metal plasma source in the same vacuum chamber with a substrate and has an advantage that the thin film preparation and the ion implantation are simultaneously carried out. A water-cooled titanium cathode was mounted with a trigger electrode. The vacuum chamber was grounded to make an anode. A trigger discharge was ignited by disconnecting the trigger electrode from the cathode to generate a DC metal-arc of 70A between cathode and grounded chamber. For suppressing the trigger-discharge current after the main are ignition, a resistance of 1 ohm is provided in the trigger discharge circuit. In PBII using a titanium vacuum arc of DC 70A with a pulse voltage of -40 kV/20 /spl mu/s, titanium nitride (TiN) films were coated on a silicon substrate (p-type, [111]).