Effect of turbostratic boron nitride buffer layers on stress evolution of cubic boron nitride films

Abstract

Cubic boron nitride (cBN) films are deposited on the BN buffer layers with aligned or random orientation of turbostratic BN (tBN) laminates. It is clearly shown that the cBN phase nucleates and grows on the buffer layer regardless of its alignment, but the lattice relationship between the tBN and the cBN phases and the behavior of the residual stress variation are different according to the tBN buffer type. Based on these results, the validity of the residual stress and tBN alignment hypothesis for cBN nucleation is hereby discussed. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.