Improvement of the adhesion of cubic boron nitride films by adding miscellaneous elements

Abstract

Cubic boron nitride films with miscellaneous added elements, such as Al, C, Si, Ti and V (BN-composite films), were deposited by dual-ion beam sputtering. The films obtained were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Also, a nano-indentation method was used to measure the film hardness. Internal stress was estimated by the bending beam method. With increasing the content of the additives, the BN-composite films changed from a cubic to a hexagonal phase. The internal (compressive) stress and hardness decreased from 5.8 and 60 GPa of the pure-cubic boron nitride (cBN) film to lower values, according to the type of additive used. These changes in all cases were influenced by the reduction of the cubic content I cBN due to the additives regardless of the kind of additive.