Monitoring the thin film formation during sputter deposition of vanadium carbide

The thin film formation of magnetron sputtered polycrystalline coatings was monitored by in situ X-ray reflectivity measurements. The measured intensity was analyzed using the Parratt algorithm for time-dependent thin film systems. Guidelines for the on-line interpretation of the data were developed. For thick coatings, the experimental resolution needs to be included in the data evaluation in order to avoid misinterpretations. Based on a simple layer model, the time-dependent mean electron density, roughness and growth velocity were extracted from the data. As an example, the method was applied to the hard coating material vanadium carbide. Both instantaneous and slowly varying changes of the coating could be detected. It was shown that the growth velocity is proportional to the DC power. Significant changes of the microstructure induced by the working gas pressure are mainly driven by the chemical composition.