Effects of ion source voltages on the composition, hardness, and temperature-dependent tribological properties of Ti-Al-Si-N nanocomposite coatings

Ti-Al-Si-N nanocomposite coatings were deposited on Si(111) and cemented carbide substrates by ion source enhanced magnetron sputtering. The diffraction intensities of (111) decreased while whose of (200) increased when the ion source voltage was increased from 400 to 800 V. The friction coefficient of Ti-Al-Si-N nanocomposite coatings largely decreased from 0.42 to 0.27 with increasing the ion source voltages from 0 to 600 V. The temperature-dependent tribological properties of Ti-Al-Si-N nanocomposite coatings was investigated between 100 and 500 degrees C and Ti-Al-Si-N coatings deposited with an ion source voltages of 600 V maintain stable friction behavior at 500 degrees C. This result indicates that ion source bombardment can considerably improve the wear resistance capacity of the Ti-Al-Si-N coatings, possibly due to the combined protection of increased adhesive force with the substrate and relatively high hardness, which are caused by densification and dislocation strengthening effects, respectively. (C) 2014 The Japan Society of Applied Physics