Influence of Nitrogen Partial Pressure and Substrate Bias on the Mechanical Properties of VN Coatings

Vanadium nitride coatings were deposited via magnetron reactive sputtering system with varying nitrogen partial pressures and negative substrate bias to further understand the influence of the sputtering conditions on the microstructure and the mechanical performance. Grazing incidence X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy equipped with energy dispersive X-ray and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were used to characterize the microstructure; nano-hardness tester and profilometer were used to measure the mechanical performance. By varying the nitrogen partial pressures from 0.007 Pa to 0.29 Pa, more compact coating with higher hardness (22.9 GPa) was achieved at 0.29 Pa. In parallel, the influence of bias voltage on the residual stress and hardness was significant.