Production and characterization of hard films of ZrN with temperature variations

ZrN films were grown by the PAPVD method in the pulsed arc technique; bilayers were grown on stainless steel substrates by using a repetitive pulsed vacuum arc system. To produce the coatings, a target of Zr with a purity of 99.99% was used. The system is composed by a reaction chamber with two opposite electrodes placed inside it. The target is the cathode and the samples of stainless steel are the anode. A pulsed power supply is used to generate the discharge. The coatings were grown, varying the temperature of the substrate between 50 C and 260 C. The pressure into chamber was 3 mbar and the voltage of the discharge was 270 V. XRD technique was employed to study the coatings, observing changes on the lattice paramenter and intensity variations of the crystallographic planes, as a function of the substrate temperature. Morphological characteristics were analized by means of an Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), determining the thickness and the grain size. (copyright 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH and Co. KGaA, Weinheim) (orig.)