Two-phase nc-TiN/a-(C,CN{sub x}) nanocomposite films: A HRTEM and MC simulation study

Journal Article · Tue Jun 18 00:00:00 EDT 2013 · AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4811876· OSTI ID:22118626

Guo, J.; Lu, Y. H.; Hu, X. J.; Shen, Y. G. ^[1]

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1. Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon (Hong Kong)

The grain growth in two-phase nanocomposite Ti-C{sub x}-N{sub y} thin films grown by reactive close-field unbalanced magnetron sputtering in an Ar-N{sub 2} gas mixture with microstructures comprising of nanocrystalline (nc-) Ti(N,C) phase surrounded by amorphous (a-) (C,CN{sub x}) phase was investigated by a combination of high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. The HRTEM results revealed that amorphous-free solid solution Ti(C,N) thin films exhibited polycrystallites with different sizes, orientations and irregular shapes. The grain size varied in the range between several nanometers and several decade nanometers. Further increase of C content (up to {approx}19 at.% C) made the amorphous phase wet nanocrystallites, which strongly hindered the growth of nanocrystallites. As a result, more regular Ti(C,N) nanocrystallites with an average size of {approx}5 nm were found to be separated by {approx}0.5-nm amorphous phases. When C content was further increased (up to {approx}48 at.% in this study), thicker amorphous matrices were produced and followed by the formation of smaller sized grains with lognormal distribution. Our MC analysis indicated that with increasing amorphous volume fraction (i.e. increasing C content), the transformation from nc/nc grain boundary (GB)-curvature-driven growth to a/nc GB-curvature-driven growth is directly responsible for the observed grain growth from great inhomogeneity to homogeneity process.

• OSTI ID: 22118626
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1542, Issue 1; Conference: 7. international conference on micromechanics of granular media, Sydney (Australia), 8-12 Jul 2013; Other Information: (c) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY
AMORPHOUS STATE
CARBON NITRIDES
COMPOSITE MATERIALS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
CRYSTALS
DEPOSITION
GRAIN BOUNDARIES
GRAIN GROWTH
GRAIN SIZE
MONTE CARLO METHOD
NANOSTRUCTURES
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
SOLID SOLUTIONS
SPUTTERING
THIN FILMS
TITANIUM NITRIDES
TRANSMISSION ELECTRON MICROSCOPY