Microstructure and mechanical properties of superhard Ti–B–C–N films deposited by dc unbalanced magnetron sputtering

Abstract

Superhard quarternary Ti–B–C–N films were successfully deposited on AISI 304 stainless steel substrates by a dc unbalanced magnetron sputtering technique from a Ti–B–C composite target. The relationship between microstructures and mechanical properties was investigated in terms of the nanosized crystallites∕amorphous system. The synthesized Ti–B–C–N films were characterized using x-ray diffraction (XRD), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). These analyses revealed that our Ti–B–C–N films are composites of solid-solution (Ti,C,N)B2 and Ti(C,N) crystallites distributed in an amorphous boron nitride (BN) phase including some of carbon, CNx, B2O3 components. The hardness of the Ti–B–C–N films increased with the increase of N content up to a maximum value of approximately 45 GPa at 10 at. % N, with a subsequent decrease in hardness at higher N content. This value is considerably higher than the hardness measured in our Ti–B–C films (∼35GPa). The Ti–B–C–N(10 at .%) film also showed the highest H3∕E*2 value (∼1.7GPa) among the coatings produced. A systematic investigation of the microstructures and mechanical properties of Ti–B–C–N films prepared with various N contents is reported in this paper.

Metal carbide/amorphous C-based nanocomposite coatings for tribological applications

“…The binding energy for a pure TiC phase is around 282.0 eV and that of amorphous carbon phase is located at ≈284.5 eV. The predominant peak at 283.2 eV can be due to the incorporation of carbon atoms to the TiB 2 phase forming the TiB x C y phase whose peak is shifted towards higher energies due to the different electronegativity between C and B as reported previously by other authors [33,34]. The x a-C fraction remains steady about 20% for the three first samples of the series and then increases continuously up to approximately 50%.…”

“…In the case of the TiBC (see Fig. 4f), the C peak can be deconvoluted into three principal components at 282.2, 283.2 and 284.5 eV [33,34]. The peak structure was similar for all the coatings varying the relative intensities among the three main peaks.…”

Structure and properties of Ti–B–C–N nanocomposite coatings synthesized using pulsed closed field unbalanced magnetron sputtering (P-CFUBMS)

“…In this work, Ti-B-C-N coatings have been successfully synthesized using P-CFUBMS system and exhibit comparable super hardness and sliding coefficient friction to previous studies [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. It was shown that the higher plasma density, ion current density and ion energies generated in the P-CFUBMS are benefit for improving the crystalline coating structure and properties [17,18].…”

“…Ti-B-C-N coating have been successfully synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) [4,5], electron beam physical vapor deposition (EB-PVD) [6], and more commonly by dc magnetron sputtering [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. In recent years, the pulsed closed field unbalanced magnetron sputtering (P-CFUBMS) has become an important technology to produce advanced coatings due to its higher deposition rate, ion current and plasma densities, compared to conventional magnetron sputtering [16].…”

“…Ti-B-C-N coating system was one of the promising nanocomposite coating systems exhibiting super hardness, good tribological properties, and high oxidation and corrosion resistance [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Ti-B-C-N coating have been successfully synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) [4,5], electron beam physical vapor deposition (EB-PVD) [6], and more commonly by dc magnetron sputtering [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15].…”