Effects of substrate bias on the properties of TiCrN films deposited on 316L by RF magnetron sputtering

Abstract TiCrN films were deposited on stainless steel 316L using a 13.56 MHz RF magnetron sputtering system with a titanium–chromium target and Ar-N 2 gas mixture. The objective of this study was to investigate the influence of substrate bias, ranging from 0 V to −100 V, on the resulting film properties. The films were analysed using grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD), nanoindentation, Raman spectroscopy, and potentiodynamic polarization tests to assess their properties. XRD results show that all structures of the films are crystalline and changed with varying bias voltage. The hardness significantly increased from 17.4 to 19.6 GPa when the bias voltage was increased from 0 to −25 V, followed by a slight decrease to 17.4 GPa at −75 V and as further decrease to 13 GPa at −100 V. The best corrosion current density of the film deposited at 0 V was 2.32 nA/cm 2 , which is about 27 times less than that of the uncoated steel 63.015 nA/cm 2 .