Evaluation of composition, mechanical properties and structure of nc-TiC/a-C:H coatings prepared by balanced magnetron sputtering

Non-monotonous evolution of hybrid PVD–PECVD process characteristics on hydrocarbon supply

“…in zones II and III) and analysed [24]. The chemical composition of the coatings behaves more monotonously as can be seen in Fig.…”

“…Other possible explanation for constant hydrogen atom concentration with acetylene supply could be that the substrate film is growing with high content of carbon matrix where significant amount hydrogen could be stored. However the film analysis in the acetylene in the range between 9 and 14 sccm showed, that the hydrogen content in the films is constant around 5% [23,24].…”

“…Magnetized plasma was ignited by DC power (1 kW or 2 kW) combined with or without RF substrate bias (225 W~-100 V). To enable comparison of the deposition process and deposited coating properties, the values of DC power, RF bias and supply flows of Ar and C 2 H 2 were selected to correspond to values used in paper [23,24] where properties of deposited n-TiC/a-C:H coatings were studied in details. The DC generator was operated in constant power mode.…”

“…The depositions for various C 2 H 2 flows were performed at conditions described in [23,24]. Target photo-documentation was done after each opening of the vacuum chamber.…”

“…For example nc-WC/a-C:H [18][19][20][21] or nc-TiC/a-C:H [9,[22][23][24] are reported to have good mechanical and tribological properties combining high hardness, good toughness with low friction coefficient and wear which makes these materials industrially attractive for different applications. For the specific case of the titanium target sputtering in hydrocarbon containing atmosphere there exits variety of papers that are focused on the influence of process parameters on properties of deposited coating [8,[25][26][27][28][29].…”