Influence of Deuterium Ion Implantation on the Structure and Hardness of Nanocrystalline Films

Titanium nitride based coatings are very attractive for protection of materials in extreme conditions. How-ever, their behavior under different kinds of irradiation is not entirely well understood. In this work, the influ-ence of ion-implanted deuterium on changes of the structure and mechanical properties TiZrN, TiAlSiN, TiAlYN films were investigated. Films were deposited by filtered vacuum arc plasma technique. After deposition all films were irradiated at room temperature with 12 keV D+ ions to dose ~1×1018 D/cm2. Composition, structure and nanohardness of the coatings were determined by X-ray fluorescence method, X-ray diffraction and nanoinden-tation. The effusion of the implanted deuterium was studied by thermal desorption spectroscopy. It is shown that irradiation by deuterium ions does not make structural changes in multicomponent films. Deuterium thermal desorption spectrum of various coatings are substantially different. Nanohardness of all in-vestigated coatings after irradiation and thermal desorption are decreased.