Titanium carbide film deposition by DC magnetron reactive sputtering using a solid carbon source

Abstract Titanium carbide films with various C/Ti ratios have been deposited by DC magnetron sputtering using carbon sheets on the Ti target erosion area as a solid carbon source. By changing the number of carbon sheets (5 × 5 × 1 mm 3 ) from 0 to 24 pieces, the C/Ti compositional ratio of the films was changed. The composition, structure, and hardness of the deposited films were estimated as a function of the ratio of the source carbon area to the titanium target erosion area. The results of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy showed that the C contents in the films increased to Ti: C = 60: 40 as the source C/Ti areal ratio increased. By X-ray diffraction, the films obtained for C/Ti areal ratios above 0.1 were found to possess the face-centered cubic structure and that the d -value of TiC (111) increased monotonically from 0.238 to 0.249 nm as the C/Ti areal ratio increased. The hardness of the films also increased monotonically as the C/Ti areal ratio increased, yielding a maximum of 11 GPa.