Effect of deposition pressure on mechanical properties of Al–Mg–B thin films

This work explored the effect of deposition pressure on the properties of the ternary Al–Mg–B thin films deposited on Si substrate at high deposition temperature (600°C) by magnetron sputtering system with one pure boron target and one Al/Mg co-target. The influences of the deposition pressure on the elemental contents, deposition rate, surface roughness, structure and mechanical properties were investigated by Electron microprobe analysis (EPMA), 3D surface profiler, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and nanoindentation experiments respectively. Experimental results indicated that the amorphous thin films deposited at 0·5 Pa had a smooth surface and displayed the maximum hardness and Young’s modulus of 35 and 322 GPa respectively. From the results of this work, high quality Al–Mg–B hard thin films can be obtained by magnetron sputtering under an optimum deposition pressure of 0·5 Pa.