TY - GEN A1 - Salhi, Faiza A1 - Aissani, Linda A1 - Fellah, Mamoun A1 - Chadli, Abdel Hakim A1 - Cheriet, Abderrahmane A1 - Belgroune, Ahlam A1 - Nouveau, Corinne A1 - Obrosov, Aleksei A1 - Samad, Mohammed Abdul A1 - Alhussein, Akram T1 - Experimental investigation of structural, wetting, mechanical and Tribological properties of TiZrN thin films deposited by magnetron sputtering T2 - Surfaces and Interfaces N2 - TiZrN thin films were deposited on Si (100) wafers and XC100 steel substrates by reactive R.f. magnetron sputtering using titanium and zirconium targets in an Ar-N2 mixture atmosphere to evaluate the effect of varying Zr content (0 to 22.2 at.%), on the film structure, surface wettability, hardness and wear resistance. The presence of different phases such as TiN, ZrN, and ZrO2 were confirmed by XRD analysis. Results showed that, the lattice parameter and film thickness increased while the crystallite size and average roughness decreased with increasing Zr content. Total surface energy between the film surface and testing liquids decreased with the addition of Zr. TiZrN film containing 18.3 at.% of Zr showed the lowest surface energy of 38.7 mN/m, indicating its hydrophobicity. The nanoindentation measurements, friction and wear tests showed that the TiZrN thin film containing 18.3 at.% of Zr had the best tribo-mechanical performance. The TiZrN (18.3 at.% Zr) film exhibited the lowest friction coefficient (0.31), and the lowest wear rate (6.65 × 10−5 mm3/Nm), which corresponds to the highest H/E ∼ 0.139, and H3/E2 ∼ 0.49 GPa ratios. The improvement in the tribo-mechanical properties is attributed to the solid solution strengthening due to the incorporation of Zr atoms in TiN system, which results in the highest hardness of 25 GPa for TiZrN (18.3 at.% Zr) film. KW - TiZrN film KW - Magnetron sputtering KW - Structure KW - Surface wettability KW - Mechanical properties KW - Wear resistance Y1 - 2021 UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2468023021005964 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surfin.2021.101519 SN - 2468-0230 VL - 27 ER -