When the coatings are in nano-scale, the mechanical properties cannot be easily estimated by means of the conventional methods due to: tip shape, instrument resolution, roughness, and substrate effect. In this paper, we proposed a semi-empirical method to evaluate the mechanical properties of thin films based on the sputtering rate induced by bombardment of Ar+ ion. The Ar+ ion bombardment was induced by ion gun implemented in Auger electron spectroscopy (AES). This procedure has been applied on a series of coatings with different structure (carbon films) and a series of coating with a different density (ZnO thin films). The coatings were deposited on Silicon substrates by RF sputtering plasma. The results show that, as predicted by Insepov et al., there is a correlation between hardness and sputtering rate. Using reference materials and a simple power law equation the estimation of the nano-hardness using an Ar+ beam is possible.
Titolo: | Nano-hardness estimation by means of Ar+ ion etching |
Autori: | |
Data di pubblicazione: | 2015 |
Rivista: | |
Abstract: | When the coatings are in nano-scale, the mechanical properties cannot be easily estimated by means of the conventional methods due to: tip shape, instrument resolution, roughness, and substrate effect. In this paper, we proposed a semi-empirical method to evaluate the mechanical properties of thin films based on the sputtering rate induced by bombardment of Ar+ ion. The Ar+ ion bombardment was induced by ion gun implemented in Auger electron spectroscopy (AES). This procedure has been applied on a series of coatings with different structure (carbon films) and a series of coating with a different density (ZnO thin films). The coatings were deposited on Silicon substrates by RF sputtering plasma. The results show that, as predicted by Insepov et al., there is a correlation between hardness and sputtering rate. Using reference materials and a simple power law equation the estimation of the nano-hardness using an Ar+ beam is possible. |
Handle: | http://hdl.handle.net/11582/302199 |
Appare nelle tipologie: | 1.1 Articolo in rivista |