ANALYSIS OF TIC AND TIN FILMS PREPARED BY AN ARC-INDUCED ION PLATING

A new ion-plating system has been devised through a simple and cost-effective modification of the ordinary thermal evaporator. We characterized the system itself through evaporation of the various metallic elements such as Zn, Al, and Ti, first of all. The ionization efficiency for the evaporants was so enhanced without any introduction of inert gases that the bias voltage for, and temperature of substrate were reduced in the preparation of the films. The practical performance of the system was recognized in terms of the preparation of the TiN and TiC films which are widely employed for decoration and tools. The overall and layer-by-layer compositions, surface and cross-sectional morphology, and textures of the films have been analyzed by scanning Auger multiprobe (including inert-gas depth profiling), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, secondary ion mass spectroscopy, and x-ray diffraction. The process parameters such as nitrogen pressure have been established for five typical groups of colors of TiN(x). In case of gold color, the atomic ratio of N to Ti was 0.95 and the main texture was developed along the (200) direction. The surface of film was smooth and dense. The relationship between microhardness, stoichiometry, and texture was investigated for the TiC films which were prepared with the various combination of the process parameters. Higher atomic ratio of C to Ti and Vicker's hardness number were obtained at higher C2H2 pressure with two distinct preferred orientations, (111) and (200).