Nanohardness and Residual Stress in TiN Coatings.

TiN films were prepared by the Cathodic arc evaporation deposition method under different negative substrate bias. AFM image analyses show that the growth mode of biased coatings changes from 3D island to lateral when the negative bias potential is increased. Nanohardness of the thin films was measured by nanoindentation, and residual stress was determined using Grazing incidence X ray diffraction.