Residual stresses in thin films and multi-layered coatings fabricated by physical vapour deposition largely affect their mechanical and thermal reliability during operation in numerous fields of applications. By changing the argon working pressure in between each multilayer planar DC magnetron sputter deposition step, it is possible to control the residual stress distribution within coatings. A combination of FIB-DIC ring-core strain analysis, synchrotron XRD analysis based on the sin²(Ψ) method and micro-cantilever deflection analysis is used to reconstruct the in-plane stress state of multilayer coatings at different deposition pressures, with a residual stress depth profile resolution of 50 nm. A clear transition from compressive to tensile residual stresses is observed with an increase of working pressure, with pronounced stress peaks near the substrate-coating interface. These peak stresses resolved by FIB-DIC ring-core analysis exceed the average XRD stress measurements significantly, thus providing a reasonable explanation for multilayer failure. Experimental results are presented and comprehensively discussed in the context of deposition conditions for different thin film applications.

通过物理气相沉积制造的薄膜和多层涂层中的残余应力会在许多应用领域的操作过程中极大地影响其机械和热可靠性。通过改变每个多层平面直流磁控管溅射沉积步骤之间的氩气工作压力，可以控制涂层内的残余应力分布。结合FIB-DIC环形应变分析，基于sin ^2的同步加速器XRD分析（Ψ）方法和微悬臂梁挠度分析用于重建多层涂层在不同沉积压力下的面内应力状态，残余应力深度分布分辨率为50 nm。随着工作压力的增加，观察到了从压缩残余应力到拉伸残余应力的清晰过渡，在基材-涂层界面附近出现了明显的应力峰值。通过FIB-DIC环核分析解析出的这些峰值应力大大超过了平均XRD应力测量值，从而为多层破坏提供了合理的解释。在不同薄膜应用的沉积条件下，对实验结果进行了介绍并进行了全面讨论。