Effects of Al content on grain growth of solid solution (Ti,Al)N films

Substitutional solid solution $(Ti1−xAlx)N$ films with different Al contents $(0⩽x⩽0.41)$ were deposited onto unheated Si(100) substrates by reactive unbalanced close-field magnetron sputtering in an $Ar–N2$ gas mixture. The effect of Al atomic concentration on the sizes of crystal grains during deposition was investigated. X-ray diffraction analysis revealed that the incorporated Al atoms had an obvious impact on the grain growth of $(Ti1−xAlx)N$ films and the average crystal grain size showed an exponential decay with Al atomic concentration. A phenomenological model was proposed to analyze this solute-drag effect occurring during film deposition. It was found that the presence of solute drag in normal grain growth resulted in a low kinetic growth exponent, and the exponential decay in average grain size with solute atomic concentration could be reproduced in our calculations.