Fabrication and Mechanical Properties of Cr2O3Thin Films Prepared by Mid-frequency Magnetron Sputtering

Abstract

Chromium oxide, which has a lot of excellent properties, such as high hardness, low friction
factor,so Chromium oxide films has good wear resistance and corrosion resistance. Chromium oxide films
were deposited on silicon substrate by medium frequency unbalanced magnetron sputtering under different
target substrate spacing, sputtering power and bias voltage.
The structure, composition, morphology and hardness of the chromium oxide films was studied by XRD,
SEM, AFM, microhardness tester. Under optimized conditions, specifically, at target-substrate distance of
100 mm and medium-frequency sputtering power of 11.2 kW, chromium oxide films with a single Cr2O3
phase were acquired. The deposited coatings had a hardness of 20.5 GPa.