Deposition of titanium nitride on AISI-304 in a plasma focus environment

Polycrystalline, smooth, and hard thin films of TiN are successfully deposited on AISI-304 substrates using a 1.5 kJ Mather-type dense plasma focus device charged at 18 kV. The purpose of this study is to investigate the structural and mechanical properties of the TiN thin films in terms of ion dose and substrate position to establish the optimum deposition conditions. The films are analyzed using XRD, SEM, electron microprobe and micro-hardness testing. XRD confirms the deposition of a polycrystalline TiN thin film together with the emergence of an iron chromium nickel phase. The surface hardness-in comparison to the unexposed substrate-is found to increase up to 250% when a film is deposited using 30 focus shots at an axial distance of 6 cm. SEM micrographs show that the quality of the film is improved with an increasing number of focus shots. The constituent elements of the film are also confirmed by electron microprobe