Dense, single-phase, hard, and stress-free Ti(0.32)Al(0.63)W(0.05)N films grown by magnetron sputtering with dramatically reduced energy consumption

The quest for lowering energy consumption during thin film growth, as by magnetron sputtering, becomes of particular importance in view of sustainable development goals. A recently proposed solution combining high power impulse and direct current magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS/DCMS) relies on the use of heavy metal-ion irradiation, instead of conventionally employed resistive heating, to provide sufficient adatom mobility, in order to obtain high-quality dense films. The major fraction of process energy is used at the sputtering sources rather than for heating the entire vacuum vessel. The present study aims to investigate the W(+) densification effects as a function of increasing Al content in (Ti(1-y)Al(y))(1-x)W(x)N films covering the entire range up to the practical solubility limits (y ~ 0.67). Layers with high Al content are attractive to industrial applications as the high temperature oxidation resistance increases with increasing Al concentration. The challenge is, however, to avoid precipitation of the hexagonal wurtzite AlN phase, which is softer. We report here that (Ti(1-y)Al(y))(1-x)W(x)N layers with y = 0.66 and x = 0.05 grown by a combination of W-HiPIMS and TiAl-DCMS with the substrate bias V(s) synchronized to the W(+)-rich fluxes (to provide mobility in the absence of substrate heating) possess single-phase NaCl-structure, as confirmed by XRD and SAED patterns. The evidence provided by XTEM images and the residual oxygen content obtained from ERDA analyses reveals that the alloy films are dense without discernable porosity. The nanoindentation hardness is comparable to that of TiAlN films grown at 400–500 °C, while the residual stresses are very low. We established that the adatom mobility due to the heavy ion W(+) irradiation (in place of resistive heating) enables the growth of high-quality coatings at substrate temperatures not exceeding 130 °C provided that the W(+) momentum transfer per deposited metal atom is sufficiently high. The benefit of this novel film growth approach is not only the reduction of the process energy consumption by 83%, but also the possibility to coat temperature-sensitive substrates.