INFLUENCE OF NITROGEN IMPLANTATION ON THE PROPERTIES OF TI AND SUBSTOICHIOMETRIC TINX FILMS DEPOSITED ON HIGH-SPEED STEEL

Ti and TiNx (x < 1) thin films have been deposited on high speed steel (HSS) substrates by reactive sputtering and then N+ implanted. The in crease of the N/Ti ratio of the films during deposition is related to a decrease in their roughness, and N+ implantation produces another ad ditional slight decrease of the roughness. The hardness of samples inc reases with the nitrogen content in the as-deposited samples; neverthe less, N+-implanted Ti coatings show lower values of hardness than reac tive sputtered TiNx films. alpha - Ti, epsilon - Ti2N, and delta - TiN phases were identified by grazing x-ray diffraction.