Formation of basal plane fiber-textured Ti2AlN films on amorphous substrates

The synthesis of fiber‐textured Ti2AlN(0001) films on SiO2 was characterized by in‐situ and ex‐situ X‐ray scattering and Rutherford backscattering spectrometry. Ti2AlN was formed by solid‐state reaction between sequentially deposited Ti and AlN layers. A deposition at 275 °C yields a Ti(0001) out‐of‐plane orientation which is maintained for the following AlN(0001)/Ti(0001) layers. Annealing to 600 °C yields AlN decomposition and diffusion of Al and N into Ti, with consecutive transformation into Ti3AlN(111) and Ti2AlN(0001) plus AlN residuals. Despite preferred Ti2AlN(0001) out‐of‐plane orientation, the in‐plane distribution is random, as expected from the self‐organized pseudo‐epitaxial growth. (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) Basal‐plane oriented Ti2AlN(0001) films are a possible substitute for low‐friction coatings, but up to now were only obtained by deposition onto single‐crystal substrates at high temperatures. This letter demonstrates that fiber‐textured Ti2AlN(0001) can be obtained also on an amorphous SiO2 substrate at a low temperature of 600°C by growth of a Ti(0001) nucleation layer, followed by topotaxial reaction between subsequently deposited Ti(0001)/AlN(0001) templates.