Depth profile of residual stress in metal-ion implanted TiN coatings

Abstract

Titanium nitride coatings made by conventional CVD were implanted with metal ions of different species at various energies. Changes occurring in the host structure after the ion implantation were studied using grazing incidence X-ray diffraction. One consequence of the metal ion implantation was an increase of the compressive residual stress in the implantation affected zone. The depth profile of the compressive residual stress can be described by a Gaussian distribution which parameters, i.e. the position of the maximum and the area, depend on the kind of implanted ions as well as on their energy. Further, the host structure becomes more compact in the implantation affected zone after the metal ion implantation. It was found that small ions can penetrate onto lattice sites of the elementary cell of TiN. This is illustrated by TiN implanted with Al: