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.