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Influence of substrate temperature and N2/Ar flow ratio on the stoichiometry, structure and hardness of TaNx coatings deposited by DC reactive sputtering

The effect of substrate temperature and N2/Ar flow ratio on the stoichiometry, structure and hardness of TaNx coatings prepared on (111) Si substrates by DC reactive sputtering was investigated. For the structural, chemical and morphological analysis, X‐ray diffraction (XRD), Auger electron scanning and atomic force microscopy were respectively used. Hardness values of thin films were determined using the work of indentation model from nanoindentation measurements. TaN stoichiometric coatings were obtained for samples deposited at room temperature. The stoichiometric TaN phase was not obtained by increasing the temperature up to 773 K, even when increasing the N2/Ar flow ratio. Even when a saturation in nitrogen content was achieved, nitrogen vacancies are still present in those samples. For coatings prepared at 773 K and low N2/Ar flow ratio, a phase mixture between TaNx and cubic α‐Ta was observed, while a cubic structure δ‐TaN was formed by increasing the N2/Ar flow ratio. A maximum in hardness and (38 GPa) was obtained for the sample deposited at 773 K and a N2/Ar flow ratio of 0.2, which presented a δ‐TaN cubic crystalline structure and a roughness value of 1.6 nm. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.