Predicting high temperature mechanical properties of CrN and CrAlN coatings from in-situ synchrotron radiation X-ray diffraction

This contribution investigates the phase composition of CrN and CrAlN coatings by in-situ high temperature synchrotron radiation (SR-XRD), with the coatings deposited on steel substrate by closed field unbalance magnetron sputtering. Rietveld refinement on the SR-XRD spectra indicated CrN as the major phase, over the temperature range of 25 °C - 700 °C, for both coatings. At the high temperature of 700 °C, a Cr₂N phase was observed in the CrN coating while the CrAlN coating also had a Cr phase. Williamson-Hall plots, from the refined data, afforded estimating variations of the strain and crystallite size of the major phase, up to 700 °C. The crystallite size (10 nm) for the CrAlN coating, at 25 °C, agrees very well with previous GI-XRD and TEM results obtained at room temperature Li et al. (2012).