Stainless steel coatings were deposited on low carbon steel and on monocrystalline silicon substrates by DC-magnetron sputtering in a reactive atmosphere containing argon and nitrogen. As the deposition process should be applied for industrial applications on in line and continuous processing, the substrates were grounded and not heated during the deposition. The nitrided stainless steel coatings were studied from the structural point of view. The preferential orientation (111) and/or (200) of the layers associated with the column-like morphology, underlined by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), is related to the thermal history of the coating growth. Interstitial nitrogen atoms are homogenously distributed in the fcc array of austenitic steel. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.