Effects of stoichiometry and individual layer thickness ratio on the quality of epitaxial CrBx/TiBy superlattice thin films

Studies of single crystal artificial superlattices (SLs) of transition-metal (TM) diborides, which is instru- mental to understand hardening mechanisms at nanoscale, is lacking. Here, CrBx/TiBy (0001) diboride SLs [x,y E 1.7-3.3] are grown epitaxially on Al2O3(0001) substrates by direct-current magnetron sputter epitaxy. Growth conditions for obtaining well-defined SLs with good interface quality are found at 4 mTorr Ar pressure and 600 degrees C. 1 -mu m-thick SL films deposited with modulation periods A between 1 and 10 nm, and A=6 nm SLs with TiBy-to-A layer thickness ratios F ranging from 0.2 to 0.8 are studied. SLs with A=6 nm and F in the range of 0.2-0.4, with a near stoichiometric B/TM ratio, exhibit the high- est structural quality. The effects of F and stoichiometries (B/TM ratio) on the distribution of B in the SL structures are discussed. By increasing the relative thickness of TiBy, the crystalline quality of SLs starts to deteriorate due to B segregation in over-stoichiometric TiBy, resulting in narrow epitaxial SL columnar growth with structurally-distorted B-rich boundaries. Moreover, increasing the relative thickness of under-stoichiometric CrBx enhances the SL quality and hinders formation of B-rich boundaries. The SLs are found to exhibit hardness values in the range of 29-34 GPa.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Funding Agencies|Swedish National Graduate School in Neutron Scattering (SwedNess); Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF) [GSn15 -0008]; Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Advanced Functional Materials (AFM) at Linkoeping University (Faculty Grant SFO Mat LiU) [2009 00971]; Swedish Research Council VR [2019-00191, 2021-00357]; Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation [KAW 2015.0043]