Structure and mechanical properties of low temperature magnetron sputtered nanocrystalline (nc-)Ti(N,C)/amorphous diamond like carbon (a-C:H) coatings

Mechanical and high pressure tribological properties of nanocrystalline Ti(N,C) and amorphous C:H nanocomposite coatings

“…The nanostructure of the coatings has been fully evaluated in our previous paper [12], but pertinent XPS, TEM and XRD results, showing evidence of this nanostructure are also presented here in Figure 1. To summarise, it was found from XPS and XRD that all the coatings are comprised of two phases Ti(N,C) and a-C:H. Peaks corresponding to f.c.c.…”

“…Details of the deposition method can be found in [12]. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was undertaken using a VG-Thermo Sigma Probe spectrometer, GAXRD on an in-house built parallel beam system and TEM 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 on a Philips CM 20 operating at 200 kV [12]. Hardness (H) and reduced elastic modulus (E r ) values were determined using a Hysitron TriboScope, equipped with a Berkovich indenter.…”

“…and the C 1s peak in Figure 1b shows peaks corresponding to the formation of both Ti(N,C) and a-C:H phases. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 The a-C:H content was determined by XPS [12] and was found to increase with acetylene flow rate from 31 at % to 42 at % and 47 at %, for coatings A, B and C respectively. Figure 1d).…”

“…The lower fraction of the hard nanocrystalline Ti(N,C) phase for similar a-C:H monolayer coverage also contributes to a reduction in hardness -coating B contains 42 at % a-C:H compared to 31 at % a-C:H for coating A. Coating C which has ~ 47 at % a-C:H shows the formation of a Ti(N,C) phase in XPS [12] however the coating is x-ray amorphous suggesting that the Ti(N,C) phase is highly disordered thus it's hardening effect is substantially diminished causing a significant drop in hardness.…”

Characterization of Ti-B-C-N films deposited by dc magnetron sputtering of bicomponent Ti/B4C target

“…And again, analysis of peaks by reference data [16] showed that this film contained the same phases as the films deposited with 25% and 40% N 2 in the gas mixture. To get information about the bonding state of deposited Ti-B-C-N films, the XPS analysis has been carried out using peak assignments from the published data [10,[17][18][19][20][21]. The XPS spectra for all the deposited Ti-B-C-N films were similar and typical Ti2p, N1s, C1s and O1s core-level spectra and their fittings are shown in Fig.…”