Dataset on microstructural, structural and tribology characterization of TiC thin film on CpTi substrate grown by RF magnetron sputtering

The datasets in this article are supplementary to the corresponding research article [1, 2]. The planar morphology and topography of TiC thin films coated on commercially pure Titanium (CpTi) grown by RF magnetron sputtering were investigated using Field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) and Atomic force microscope (AFM). The mechanical properties such as Hardness and Young Modulus of the thin film coating was studied using Nanohardness. Furthermore, grazing incidence X-ray diffractometer (GIXRD) and Raman spectroscopy were used to analyse the structural and composition of the TiC thin film coating.

RF magnetron sputtering TiC thin film Field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) Atomic force microscope (AFM) Grazing incidence X-ray diffractometer (GIXRD) Raman spectroscopy Nanohardness a b s t r a c t The datasets in this article are supplementary to the corresponding research article [1,2]. The planar morphology and topography of TiC thin films coated on commercially pure Titanium (CpTi) grown by RF magnetron sputtering were investigated using Field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) and Atomic force microscope (AFM). The mechanical properties such as Hardness and Young Modulus of the thin film coating was studied using Nanohardness. Furthermore, grazing incidence X-ray diffractometer (GIXRD) and Raman spectroscopy were used to analyse the structural and composition of the TiC thin film coating.
© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Data description
The RF magnetron sputtering process parameters develop by using L9 Taguchi orthogonal array is presented in Table 1. The Raman spectra of the TiC thin film coatings obtained from Raman spectroscopy is presented in Fig. 1. The GIXRD diffractogram of the structural properties is shown in Fig. 2 and the GIXRD parameters of the TiC thin film coatings such as crystalline size, dislocation density, microstrain and texture coefficient are tabulated in Table 2. Fig. 3 illustrates the planar microstructural morphology evolution of the TiC thin film coating obtained from FESEM analysis while the surface topography result from the AFM analysis is presented in Fig. 4. The AFM statistical information about the surface topography such as mean roughness, skewness and kurtosis are tabulated in Fig. 4 (see Table 3). The output response and plots of the load against displacement are tabulated in Table 4. The plot of the sample numbers against the young modulus and hardness is presented in Fig. 5.
Specification Table   Subject Surfaces, Coatings and Films Specific subject area RF Magnetron sputtering coating and nanomaterial thin film characterizations. Type of data The CpTi substrates were polished and ground using ASTM standard. Further cleansing in acetone, isopropanol and deionized water were performed Pre-sputtering for 5 mins to remove contaminants Samples characterizations were conducted in ambient condition Description of data collected The FESEM images were captured on the microscope using the ZEISS software at a magnification of X50000 The AFM images of the height profile were captured using nanoscope software The indentation depth of the nanohardness was 10% of the film thickness and the load control mode was used. The

Value of Data
The data provide an insight into the significance and influence of thin film coatings on properties of metals These data can be used for research applications and industrial usage in the area of surface coatings, materials application and mechanical engineering The data is applicable for the development of predictive and mathematical models for optimization of RF process parameters The data presents the effect of RF magnetron sputtering process parameters on the coating properties The data can be explored by scientists and researchers in the field of materials and mechanical engineering

Deposition of TiC thin film on CpTi using RF magnetron sputtering
TiC thin films were deposited in an RF Magnetron sputtering on CpTi substrate under different process parameters. The purity of the stoichiometric TiC target used is 99.99% pure TiC. The process parameters varied for the deposition processes were deposition time, power and temperature. An L9 (3 3 ) experimental array shown in Table 1 was used with three factors at three levels of Low, Mid and High and a total of nine deposition runs were done. Detailed analysis of the deposition condition can be found in Refs. [1,2].

Microstructural and topography characterization
Atomic force microscopy (Veeco Di2100 AFM) was used to evaluate the 3D surface topographies of the samples. Image scan size of 5 Â 5 mm 2 was obtained in tapping mode. All analysis was performed in ambient temperature. Nanoscope software was used for capturing and analyzing the images from the surface of the samples. Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope FESEM (ZEISS Gemini*2, Germany) capable of capturing nanoscale images effortlessly at very high magnification was used to   observe the surface morphology evolution. The FESEM can take images at very high magnification and images were taken at 50,000x magnification.

Structural and composition characterization
Raman analyses were carried out on TiC thin films using an alpha300R (WITec) confocal laser Raman microscope configured with a frequency-doubled Nd-YAG laser (wavelength 532 nm). Raman spectra were collected using Â50 Nikon objectives. A laser power of 2 mW at room temperature was used to prevent burning of the film surface. Beam centring and Raman spectra calibration were performed before spectral acquisition using a-Si standard (111). The Raman spectrum of the substrate was obtained and used to compare with the TiC thin films deposited. Grazing Incidence X-ray Diffractometer (GIXRD PANalyticals's Xpert Pro with Cu K-alpha and wavelength 1.540598 A) at a very low angle of incidence of 0.02 /s from 10 to 90 was used to study the structural properties of the thin film.
The crystallite size (D) was calculated using the Scherer equation, D¼ (0.9 l)/bcosq; where l is the wavelength of the X-ray used (1.540598 A); b, the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the highestintense peak; and q, the Bragg angle.

Mechanical characterization
Nanomechanical properties such as Young's modulus and hardness of thin films were obtained by nanoindentation technique (Hysitron, Triboindenter TI950, USA). Load controlled indentation testing followed a trapezoidal (loading-dwelling-unloading) profile with a hold time of typically 15 s at peak load. The peak load was 300mN at a loading rate of 10 mN s À1 . The diamond indenter was a Berkovich tip with a tip radius of curvature of 100 nm. From the analyzed load-displacement curves, Young's modulus of measured films can be calculated using Oliver and Pharr analysis [3,4]. All the data presented in this study corresponds to an average of 10 measurements. The indentation depth was never deeper than 10% of the total coating thickness to avoid the influence of the substrate on the coating [5].