Improving scratch-resistance and wear-resistance of VN film by deep cryogenic treatment with liquid nitrogen

Abstract

Deep cryogenic treatment is an effective method to improve materials' properties and has shown a considerable industries application prospect. In this work, deep cryogenic treatment with liquid nitrogen had been applied to deal with multi-arc ion-plated VN film. The results show that after deep cryogenic treatment, the scratch-resistance and wear-resistance of VN film are improved greatly, but the improvement in properties as well as surface roughness evolution is not proportional to the soaking time. The VN film with a soaking time of 20 h has the best mechanical properties, and the VN film with a soaking time of 40 h has the finest scratch-resistance, while the VN film with a soaking time of 30 h has the lowest surface roughness and wear rate. However, the wear mechanisms of these VN films with different soaking time are all adhesive wear and oxidative wear.