Materials

Characterisation of microstructure of Cr/CrN/Cr/Cr(N,C) coating deposited with pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique

Publication from Materials

Morgiel J., Major L., Takahashi H., Shibayama T., Foord D., Lackner J.M.

Arch. Mat. Sci. 26 (1-2), pp. 111-117, 2005

Abstract:

The Cr/CrN/Cr/Cr(C,N) coating on stainless steel substrate were obtained using Pulse Laser Deposition (PLD) The standard transmission observations (TEM) showed that the coating consist of four main layers of 225/341/75/416 nm, of which the first one is divided to three sub-layers. The second and fourth layer was built from columnar grains, while all others showed amorphous like contrast. The local chemical analysis performed using X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy attachment (EDS) confirmed high content of nitrogen and carbon in TiN and Cr(N,C) respectively and pointed toward a raised level of oxygen in all layers. These measurements indicated also an existence of strong Cr gradient in buffer layer. The atomic resolution observations (HREM) helped both to precise the size of columnar grains and roughly estimate their defect density. The same type of observations performed on Cr buffer and intermediate layer proved that they contain Cr nano-crystallites. Additionally, the density of nano-crystallites was found changing in between buffer sub-layers.

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