Stress gradients in CrN coatings

Stress in hard films is the net sum of tensile stress generated at the grain boundaries, compressive stress due to ion peening, and thermal stress due to the difference in thermal expansion of the coating and substrate. The tensile part due to grain boundaries is thickness dependent. The other two contributions are not thickness dependent. Summation of the three components leads to a stress gradient in the coating. In the present paper it is demonstrated that adding the three contributions mentioned above yields a good description of the observed dependence of stress on thickness in CrN coatings.