Development of hard and optically transparent Al-Si-N nanocomposite coatings

Nanocomposite Al-Si-N coatings have been successfully deposited by d.c. magnetron sputtering on different technological important substrates such as Si, SS-304, and glass. In this manuscript, the structural, mechanical, and optical properties of the Al-Si-N have been investigated. A solid solution of Al-Si-N phase is formed with a wurtzite hexagonal nc-AlN structure. The Al-Si-N films showed a high hardness 30GPa, modulus 300GPa, and elastic recovery, We=54% and H/E=0.1, which are the essential conditions for enhanced crack-resistant coatings. Moreover, the films were optically transparent in ultraviolet and visible range with a transparency of 90% with an optical band gap of 3.8eV. Copyright (c) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd