Structural and mechanical properties of stainless steel thin films elaborated by thermal evaporation and ion beam sputtering

Wear and corrosion behaviors of coated materials are tightly controlled by the coating structural and mechanical states and thus, the deposition process such as evaporation and sputtering. In this study, structural and mechanical characterization of stainless steel films have been done by X-ray diffraction and nanoindentation. A softening of the Young modulus is evidenced in the films with respect to the bulk state for both deposition processes. Using the measured elastic constants for X-ray residual stresses analysis, the stress value then obtained are equivalent to the mechanical one. There are found to be high - between 1 and 3 GPa - but of opposite sign considering either evaporation nor sputtering. A correlation with the film microstructure is observed.