Study of the interaction between a zirconium thin film and an EN C100 steel substrate: Temperature effect
Introduction
In many industrial applications the properties of bulk metallic materials like steel are not sufficient to withstand aggressive environment or severe mechanical solicitations. It is possible to increase the corrosion resistance or wear resistance by modifying the surface of the steel. One of the most widespread options is to coat the surface with a film of another material. The bulk substrate provides the structural properties whereas the film brings the surface properties. A thin film with a thickness of few micrometers is often sufficient to increase the durability of the system. However, a good adhesion of the coating to the substrate is essential for a successful application [1]. Hard coatings can have a poor film quality due to porous microstructure and weak adhesion [2]. Also, adhesion problems related to the different thermal expansion coefficients of the coating and substrate material were also observed [3]. Many researches were done to obtain hard coatings with high adhesion by using controlled arc plasma deposition [4], plasma focus device [5], through deposition by combined magnetron deposition and ion implantation [6] or by thermo-reactive diffusion deposition (TRD) [7].
In the (TRD) process, hard coating result from the reaction between the deposited material and one element of the substrate that diffuses to the surface at the same time. The processing technique presented in this work consists in separating the deposition step and the diffusion step. This is not a viable solution industrially and will never become an alternative for the real TRD treatment. However, it may shed a light on the diffusion step as well as on the determination of microstructure evolution during the hard coating formation.
The present work is dedicated to the formation of a zirconium carbide hard coating with good adhesion by the conversion of a zirconium film deposited on high carbon steel. This transformation is likely to occur due to carbon diffusion from the substrate into the film through a post-deposition annealing of the coating/substrate system at different temperatures (600 °C–1100 °C). The zirconium carbide was chosen because of its good properties (thermal, chemical, optoelectronical), excellent corrosion and wear resistances, which makes it widely employed in industry [8], [9], [10].
Section snippets
Films preparation
Pure Zr thin films of 3.5 μm thickness were deposited by RF magnetron sputtering. The distance between the target and the substrate holder was fixed at 100 mm. The base vacuum of the chamber was kept at 10−5 Pa. During deposition, the Argon (99.99% purity) working pressure was fixed at 0.3 Pa and the substrate temperature was fixed at 200 °C. The deposition duration was 250 min, the RF power was 400 W leading to a self-bias of −900 V.
High carbon steel (EN C100 or AISI 1095), containing 1 wt.%
Morphology
The Zr/C100 pristine sample surface shows a reflecting metallic gray appearance while samples treated at high temperatures have a dull blackish brown aspect. The surface of the deposited film has a smooth uniform morphology, Fig. 1-a, with a microstructure characterized by fine grains in nano-domes form, with diameters of a few tens of nanometers, but polishing scratches are still visible. This morphology is characteristic of a growth developed by agglomeration of atoms. The cross section
Conclusion
The evolution of the structural and mechanical properties of zirconium films deposited on C100 steel as a function of annealing temperature under vacuum was investigated. Results indicate a gradual transformation of the metallic film into zirconium carbide. The two phases coexist between 600 and 1000 °C. At 600 °C, zirconium phase is the predominant phase, but by raising the annealing temperature, the carbide phase becomes predominant at 900 °C and remains the main crystallized phase at
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