EFFECT OF DEPOSITION CONDITIONS ON MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF MAGNETRON SPUTTERED SiC THIN FILMS

R. Ctvrtlik(a), V. Kulikovsky(b), P. Bohac(b), and O. Blahova(c) ((a) Palacky University, Faculty of Science, Regional Centre of Advanced Technologies and Materials, Joint Laboratory of Optics of Palacky University and Institute of Physics of Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Olomouc, (b) Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Praha, (c) New Technologies-Research Centre, University of West Bohemia, Plzen, Czech Republic): Effect of Deposition Conditions on Mechanical Properties of Magnetron Sputtered SiC Thin Films The interdependence of mechanical properties (hardness, elastic modulus, internal stress, coefficient of friction), structure and composition of various amorphous and nanocrystalline DC magnetron and DC reactive magnetron sputtered SiC a SiC: H films was studied. Composition was determined by electron micro analyses and structure was investigated using Raman spectroscopy. Indentation hardness and reduced modulus were measured by instrumented nanoindentation, the coefficient of friction was evaluated using pin-on-disc method. It has been shoved that mechanical and tribological properties of a-SiC are strongly influenced by conditions of deposition process. Using appropriate deposition setup it is possible to obtain superhard nanocrystalline films with hardness of 40 GPa (higher than alpha-SiC) as well as films compromising high hardness (approx. 19 GPa) and relatively low friction (approx. 0.15).