Chromium Nitride Coating by Inductively Coupled Plasma-assisted RF Magnetron Sputtering

Chromium nitride (CrN) films were deposited by using inductively coupled plasma (ICP) assisted RF magnetron sputtering to investigate the effect of substrate bias voltage on the hardness, surface morphology roughness, and crystalline growth on Si(100) substrate. As increasing substrate bias voltage (Vb), surface hardness increased from 5 to 15 GPa. The grain size also increased proportionally as increasing Vb from -30 to -80, while beyond -80 V
_b
, the grain size was deteriorated by an intense N
⁺
ion bombardment.