X-ray Diffraction Investigation of Stainless Steel—Nitrogen Thin Films Deposited Using Reactive Sputter Deposition

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

There are some minor changes needed. In particular more information needs to be given about the sputtering conditions, namely target to substrate distance, target power density, rf frequency, substrate orientation with respect to the target.

There are some minor typos:

Line 385: “Fig.7” should read “Fig. 8”.

Line 422 “needs” is duplicated.

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing and commenting on our paper.  The minor typos have been fixed, and additional information on sputter deposition conditions has be added in lines 196-198. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Manuscript entitled “X-ray Diffraction Investigation of Stainless Steel – Nitrogen Thin Films Deposited using Reactive Sputter Deposition”, by Faisal I. Alresheedi and James E. Krzanowski, describes a structural analysis of nitrogen-containing stainless steel thin films deposited by magnetron sputtering varying the substrate temperature and the bias levels.

The films were analyzed by X-ray electron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray diffraction. From the diffraction studies it is concluded that the structure deviates from the ideal cubic lattice for low temperatures and high bias levels, and this diffraction anomaly increases for low nitrogen contents. The results suggest that the anomaly is related to defects produced by sub-stoichiometric nitrogen content.

The paper is well written, the experiments are adequately described, the results are clearly presented and discussed in depth, and the conclusions are sound.

The manuscript is suitable for publication in its present form after two minor points have been addressed:

• Figure 5 is not cited in the text.
• Table 2 should be labelled Table 1 or Table I. It is cited in the text as “Table I” (line 323 on page 9).

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing and commenting on our paper. The minor corrections suggested by the reviewer have been made.  The reference to Fig. 5 was incorrectly labeled as Fig. 4 in line 273; this has been fixed.

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Referee could not understand the role of Figure 6.
It is not so much discussed in the main text.
Because Figure 3 clearly shows the crystal structure is not cubic.
In Figure 7, it means the case of a/c=1.
Referee believes that the existence of Figure 6 makes the readers confuse.
It should be deleted or move to appendix.

Simple Corrections:
For the x axis label and caption of Figure 6 and 7 the character phi is different form from the main text.
In Figure A1, vertical axis label must not Italic but upright,except variable a.

Author Response

We would like to thank the reviewer for the comment made regarding Fig. 6.  In fact, the discussion of the figure was incomplete and we have revised the paper accordingly.  Specifically, as noted in the introduction one explanation for peak shifts is residual stress effects (along with possible elastic anisotropy).  Residual stresses will cause predictable effects on the a(hkl) vs. phi curves, and so the data in Fig. 6 can be evaluated in terms of those expectations.  We have added an important paragraph in the paper (lines 388-398) discussing these residual stress effects and conclude that residual stress considerations cannot explain the data shown in Fig. 6, further supporting the final conclusions of the paper.

Additionally, the typographical errors noted have been fixed.

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

If possible, it is better for readers that in Figure 6, 7, and 8, ø=0 are noted in the graph areas or captions.

 

Author Response

Revisions to the figures and captions have been made.