Plasma Nitriding and Carbon Assisted Plasma Nitriding of Tantalum
Abstract
Plasma nitriding and carbon assisted plasma nitriding of tantalum were carried out. The nitride layer prepared with pure N2 is composed of TaN and Ta2N with hexagonal structure and a nitriding depth of 500 nm. The carbon assisted plasma nitriding process was carried out with the addition of methane into N2 gas (5% and 10% in volume ratio) as carbon source. The carbonitride films were found to be composed of a larger number of micro-crystals nearly 1 um in size, with a uniform and compact surface, as revealed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). TaC1-xNx with a face-centered-cubic (FCC) and Ta2C1-xNx with hexagonal structure were identified by X-ray diffraction(XRD). The auger electron spectroscopy (AES) depth profiles reveal that the diffusion depth of nitrogen increased from 500 nm in nitride film to 1.5-3 μm in carbonitride films. The high solubility of nitrogen in tantalum carbide might be the main cause that promoted the diffusion of nitrogen during the plasma carbonitriding process.
This work was supported by Foundation of President of China Academy of Engineering Physics (YZJJLX2016006), and partially supported by Key Project of Natural Science Foundation of China (U1630250), National Fund Project (CXTQ 20171631302), Material Fund (TP201402-3).- Publication:
-
APS March Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019APS..MARB45004Y