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Mechanical properties of amorphous silicon carbonitride thin films at elevated temperatures

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Abstract

The mechanical properties of amorphous silicon carbonitride (a-SiC x N y ) films with various nitrogen content (y = 0–40 at.%) were investigated in situ at elevated temperatures up to 650 °C in inert atmosphere. A SiC film was measured also at 700 °C in air. The hardness and elastic modulus were evaluated using instrumented nanoindentation with thermally stable cubic boron nitride Berkovich indenter. Both the sample and the indenter were separately heated during the experiments to temperatures of 300, 500, and 650 °C. Short duration high temperature creep tests (1200 s) of the films were also carried out. The results revealed that the room temperature hardness and elastic modulus deteriorate with the increase of the nitrogen content. Furthermore, the hardness of both the a-SiC and the a-SiCN films with lower nitrogen content at 300 °C drops to approx. 77 % of the corresponding room temperature values, while it reduces to 69 % for the a-SiCN film with 40 at.% of nitrogen. Further increase of temperature is accompanied with minor reduction in hardness except for the a-SiCN film with highest nitrogen content, where the hardness decreases at a much faster rate. Upon heating up to 500 °C, the elastic modulus of the a-SiCN film decreases, while it increases at 650 °C due to the pronounced effect of short-range ordering. The steady-state creep rate increases at elevated temperatures and the a-SiC exhibits slower creep rates compared to the a-SiCN films. The value of the universal constant x = 7 relating the W p/W t and H/E * was established and its applicability was demonstrated. Analysis of the experimental indentation data suggests a theoretical limit of hardness to elastic modulus ratio of 0.143.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by the project LO1305 of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic. Dr. Ctvrtlik also acknowledges the support through the Fulbright Scholar program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. RCPTM, Joint Laboratory of Optics, Palacky University, 17. listopadu 12, 771 46, Olomouc, Czech Republic

    Radim Ctvrtlik

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, 24061, USA

    Marwan S. Al-Haik

  3. Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Na Slovance 2, 182 21, Prague 8, Czech Republic

    Valeriy Kulikovsky

  4. Institute for Problems of Materials Science, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 3 Krzhyzhanovsky St., Kiev, 03142, Ukraine

    Valeriy Kulikovsky

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  1. Radim Ctvrtlik
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  2. Marwan S. Al-Haik
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Correspondence to Radim Ctvrtlik.

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Ctvrtlik, R., Al-Haik, M.S. & Kulikovsky, V. Mechanical properties of amorphous silicon carbonitride thin films at elevated temperatures. J Mater Sci 50, 1553–1564 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-014-8715-0

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