Titanium carbide film deposition by DC magnetron reactive sputtering usinga solid carbon source

Titanium carbide films with various C/Ti ratios have been deposited by DC m agnetron sputtering using carbon sheets on the Ti target erosion area as a solid carbon source. By changing the number of carbon sheets (5 x 5 x 1 mm( 3)) from 0 to 24 pieces, the C/Ti compositional ratio of the films was chan ged. The composition, structure, and hardness of the deposited films were e stimated as a function of the ratio of the source carbon area to the titani um target erosion area. The results of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy sho wed that the C contents in the films increased to Ti : C = 60 : 40 as the s ource C/Ti areal ratio increased. By X-ray diffraction, the films obtained for C/Ti areal ratios above 0.1 were found to possess the face-centered cub ic structure and that the d-value of TiC (111) increased monotonically from 0.238 to 0.249 nm as the C/Ti areal ratio increased. The hardness of the f ilms also increased monotonically as the C/Ti areal ratio increased, yieldi ng a maximum of 11 GPa. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.