The influences of filament temperature on the structure of boron nitride films and its tribological characterization for microforming die application

Abstract

Boron nitride film was deposited on 〈1 0 0〉-oriented silicon substrate by hot filament assisted chemical vapor deposition. The B[N(CH3)2]3 (Tris(dimetylamino)borane, TDMAB) was used as the single source precursor both for boron and nitride, and ammonia gas was used as the extra source to increase the N concentration in the films. Elemental composition of the films deposited under different filament temperatures were measured by energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis, and the structure of the films were measured by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). The boron nitride films deposited under lower filament temperature was amorphous, while BN films contain hexagonal structure were deposited at higher filament temperature. To verify whether the films can be applied to the microforming die, a ball on disk test was carried out using pure titanium ball as the counterpart to investigate the interfacial behavior between the films and pure titanium. The results show that the reaction between the films and pure titanium was low as there was no titanium adhesion on the wear track when the film was remained.