Magnetron Sputtering System for Deposition of Multinanolayered Coatings With Reactive Gas Activation in Microwave Discharge

The design of a dual gas magnetron system for ion sputtering of two source materials with an activation of a reactive gas in the remote microwave (MW) discharge for the deposition of multinanolayered coatings is presented. The design of the reactive gas activator with the electron cyclotron resonance was realized on the basis of the analysis of possible schemes for the formation of MW gas discharge plasma systems. The vacuum electron magnetron is used as a MW generator (2.45 GHz and similar to 800 W). Geometry of the electrodynamic part of the activator was selected by means of simulation with Comsol Multiphysics. The practical examination of the dual sputtering system was carried out by sputtering of Ti and B4C targets, while nitrogen was used as the reactive gas. The characteristics of the multinanolayered Ti-B-C-N coatings were studied and it was determined that the deposited coatings had the nc-TiNx/(a-BN+a-C) structure. The Knoop hardness of the coatings was found to be similar to 45 GPa, while the nanohardness was lower than Knoop ones by similar to 20%-30%. The presented sputtering system could be recommended for deposition of wear-resistant and protective coatings.