Structural, mechanical, and magnetic properties of ferrite–austenite mixture in evaporated 304 stainless steel thin films
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Date
2015-08-31
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Abstract
In this paper, we investigate the structure,
composition, magnetic, and mechanical properties of
stainless steel thin films formed by thermal evaporation
technique. These thin films reveal novel structural and
physical properties where they were found to consist of
nanocrystals that are *90 % body-centred cubic crystal
structure which holds ferromagnetic properties (a-phase),
and *10 % face-centred cubic crystal structure which is
paramagnetic at room temperature (c-phase). The presence
of the above phases was quantified by X-ray diffraction,
transmission electron microscopy, and conversion electron
Mo¨ssbauer spectroscopy. The magnetic properties were
evaluated by a superconducting quantum interference
device magnetometer, and they confirmed the dual-phase
crystal structure of the stainless thin films, where the
presence of c-phase reduced the magnetization of the
produced thin films. In addition, the fabricated stainless
steel thin films did not contain micro-cracks, and they
exhibit a tensile stress of about 1.7 GPa, hardness of 7.5
GPa, and elastic modulus of 104 GPa.