Synthesis and Characterization of Ni and Ni/CrN Nanocomposite Coatings by Plasma Assisted Metal-Organic CVD

✍ Scribed by P. A. Premkumar; A. Dasgupta; P. Kuppusami; P. Parameswaran; C. Mallika; K. S. Nagaraja; V. S. Raghunathan

• Book ID: 102815497
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 924 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0948-1907
• DOI: 10.1002/cvde.200506415

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Procedures for Ni films and the composite coatings of Ni/CrN deposited using plasma assisted metal‐organic (MO) CVD are reported. Ni[(acac)~2~en] and Cr(acac)~3~ were used as the precursors for Ni and Cr, respectively. The composite coatings of Ni/CrN were developed by simultaneous cracking of these volatile chemical vapor sources using a glow discharge DC plasma under sub‐atmospheric pressure. Deposition of Ni films at various substrate temperatures indicated that pore‐free films could be formed at a substrate temperature of 600 °C. Irrespective of the mass percentage of the precursors of Ni and Cr, X‐ray diffraction (XRD) revealed a biphasic (CrN/Ni) structure for the composite coatings containing nanometer‐sized particles. The addition of the soft Ni phase to the relatively harder CrN phase was found to control the hardness of the Ni/CrN composites. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies confirmed the nanophasic distribution of Ni and CrN in the composite coatings.