Texture and Residual Stresses in Mo, Nb, and Nb/Mo Magnetron Coatings

X-ray diffraction is used to investigate the texture and residual stresses in mono- and multilayer Nb, Mo, and Nb/Mo coatings. The (111) texture component and the level of residual compressive stresses are found to increase with the substrate voltage for ~10-μm-thick niobium and molybdenum monolayer coatings. The hexagonal Nb2N nitride is found in the Nb coatings together with the bcc solid solution of nitrogen in niobium. The nitride content increases with the stress on the substrate. The level of residual compressive stresses in multilayer ~800-μm-thick coatings is significantly lower (200–600 MPa) than in much thinner (almost two orders of magnitude) monolayer coatings (>1000 MPa), which can be explained by the mutual compensation of thermal stresses with different signs at each following interface between niobium and molybdenum layers with significantly different linear thermal expansion coefficients (7.1 × 10–6 and 5.3 × 10–6 K–1, respectively).