Influence of substrate temperature on the materials properties of reactive DC magnetron sputtered Ti/TiN multilayered thin films

Ti/TiN multilayers were deposited by DC reactive magnetron sputtering method using a titanium target and an Ar-N₂ mixture discharge gas. XRD technique was employed to study the structure of the coatings and to observe the variations of structural parameters with substrate temperatures. An increase in grain size with increase of substrate temperature was observed. The components of Ti 2p doublet, related to TiN, TiON and TiO₂, were observed in the core-level spectra of the deposited multilayer films from XPS analysis. A microhardness value of 25.5 GPa was observed for Ti/TiN multilayers prepared at 400 °C. Electrical properties were found to depend on substrate temperature.