Preparation of thin Ti films by IBAD

This paper presents the structure and strength of polycrystalline Ti films on YSZ (110) substrates prepared by ion beam aided deposition (IBAD). Both the deposited and annealed Ti film have a (100) fiber texture that is strongly affected by annealing temperatures. With the increase of annealing temperature, of scan curves as well as the enhancement of the (100) diffraction peak indicates that the (100) fiber texture has reinforced. The deposited Ti film is nanocrystalline, and the grain size grows obviously with the annealing temperature increasing to 700°C. It is interesting to discover the face-centered cubic (fcc) phase Ti in the hexagonal close-packed structure (hep) Ti matirx, indicated by x-ray diffraction (XRD). The strength of Ti films, characterized by the nanoindentation method, reaches a maximum value after annealing at 500°C and then decreases with increasing annealing temperature, which can be attributed to crystallization and coarsening of grains in the Ti film.