Structure, chemical and phase composition of hard titanium carbon nitride coatings deposited on HS 6-5-2 steel

It is the object of this work to determine the influence of reactive-gas mixtures on the structure, chemical and phase composition of titanium carbon nitride coatings produced by cathodic arc plasma deposition (CAPD) on HS 6-5-2 steel substrate. The film morphology was examined by scanning electron microscope. The phase composition was tested by X-ray diffraction. The chemical composition was determined by the energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS), Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (RBS) and the elastic recoil detection analysis (ERDA) methods. Furthermore, the depth composition profiles were determined by the glow discharge optical emission spectrometry (GDOES) method. The results show that the gas mixture composition has an evident influence on the structure, chemical and phase compositions of TiCN coatings. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V.