Exploring Tribological Characteristics of Sputtered Titanium Nitride

The life time and wear resistance of several equipments and industrial parts could be improved by applying hard thin film coating on the substrate. Use of thin protective coating is a desired to improve the tribological behavior of the machine parts. Titanium nitride coating is mostly used for the coating of drilling tools and milling cutters. It increases the efficiency and life of the tool by preventing the corrosion. It can also apply as wear indicator. It has a very attractive bright gold color, and this distinctive feature has resulted in TiN also being used in a number of decorative applications.The main purpose of this work is to study the effect of various sputtering parameters such as substrate temperature and pressure on structural and tribological properties of titanium nitride films deposited on the substrate using RF magnetron sputtering technique.Here in this study titanium nitride thin film is deposited at different substrate temperature and sputtering pressure. Structural properties studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectroscopy, atomic force microscope and scanning electron microscope. Tribological properties studied by using pin on disc tribometer.