Mechanical properties of TiC/metal multilayers synthesized by ion beam sputtering technique

The periodicity and structural properties of artificially modulated titanium carbide (TiC)/metal multilayers were studied by low angle x-ray diffraction technique. TiC/metal nanoscaled multilayers were prepared by multifunction ion beam assisted deposition system. Proper adjustment of the modulation parameters exhibited an increase in the hardness of multilayers. Multilayers hardness was found to be greater than the volume weighted mean of two components. Results exhibited that the dislocations were due to the reciprocal relationship between dislocation pile up mechanism and the dislocation image forces mechanism.