Effects of high-flux low-energy (20–100 eV) ion irradiation during deposition on the microstructure and preferred orientation of Ti0.5Al0.5N alloys grown by ultra-high-vacuum reactive magnetron sputtering.

Investigates the effects of incident ion/metal flux ratio J[subi]/J[subMe] and ion energy E[subi] on the microstructure, texture and phase composition of polycrystalline metastable Ti[0.5]Al[0.5]N films produced by reactive magnetron sputtering. Description of the polycrystalline metastable Ti[0.5]Al[0.5]N films; Analysis of the microstructures of as-deposited alloys using a combination of x-ray diffractometry and transmission electron microscopy.