Phase Formation and Thermal Stability of Reactively Sputtered YTaO-ZrO Coatings.

YTaZrO coatings with 0 to 44 mol% ZrO were synthesized by sputtering. Phase-pure -YTaO coatings were obtained at a substrate temperature of 900 °C. Alloying with ZrO resulted in the growth of along with -Zr(Y,Ta)O for ≤15 mol%, while for ≥28 mol%, ZrO X-ray diffraction (XRD) phase-pure metastable was formed, which may be caused by small grain sizes and/or kinetic limitations.

Remote Tracking of Phase Changes in CrAlC Thin Films by In-situ Resistivity Measurements.

Resistivity changes of magnetron sputtered, amorphous CrAlC thin films were measured during heating in vacuum. Based on correlative X-ray diffraction, in-situ and ex-situ selected area electron diffraction measurements and differential scanning calorimetry data from literature it is evident that the resistivity changes at 552 ± 4 and 585 ± 13 °C indicate the phase transitions from amorphous to a hexagonal disordered solid solution structure and from the latter to MAX phase, respectively. We have shown that phase changes in CrAlC thin films can be revealed by in-situ measurements of thermally induced resistivity changes.