Dear Mahamud,

Almost all sputter deposited thin films (at low deposition pressure) show compressive intrinsic stress after deposition. Low pressure goes together with high energy of charged particles, hence there is a sort of atomic peening effect during deposition. For higher deposition pressure, the intrinsic stress becomes zero and eventually, for still higher deposition pressures, tensile. The point of zero stress might be in the 5-8E-03 mbar range where the coating already shows strong porosity.