Abstract

Surface acoustic wave (SAW) spectroscopy is a nondestructive way to determine thin-film properties. Plane-wave SAWs are generated by a line-focused pulsed laser and detected by a Michelson interferometer. Phase velocity dispersion relations over hundreds of megahertz are obtained by measuring the wave displacement versus propagation distance. Data analysis employs a new Green's function model that accommodates elastic anisotropy in the entire layered system. With this approach, quantitative values for film properties such as thickness d and Young's modulus E are obtained. We evaluate two materials developed for enhanced wear resistance and show how different models containing one or more layers affect the results. In TiN films, E generally increased with increasing d and decreasing compressive residual stress /spl sigma/, regardless of the analysis model used. In superhard Ti/sub 1-x/Si/sub x/N/sub y/ films with a nanocomposite structure, SAW values for E were obtained. When combined with microhardness data from instrumented indentation techniques, these results showed that hardness-to-modulus ratios related to scratch and abrasion resistance were quite high.

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