SOME REMARKS ON THE TERNARY TiAlSiN THIN FILMS DEVELOPED UNDER SPECIFIC CONDITIONS

The need for more performant wear resistant coatings shifted the attention from TiN to the extension of the material system with additional elements like Al and Si. This paper presents our findings in relation with this material system. We studied the evolution of the growth morphology in terms of nitrogen flow and temperature to track the changes which occur in the structure of the coatings. Our coatings exhibited a weak textured growth at the lowest nitrogen flows. This structure turned into a randomly oriented diffuse nanocrystalline one, and further increasing the nitrogen flow during the deposition the morphology of the coating changed again to a textured one. We found that the switching points for these transitions are dependent of temperature.