Structure, chemical and phase compositions of coatings deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering onto the brass substrate

The paper presents investigation results of the structure, as well as of the chemical and phase compositions of the selected PVD coatings deposited with the reactive magnetron sputtering method. The 1, 15 and 150-ply Ti/CrN, Ti/TiAlN, Ti/ZrN, TiAlN/Mo coatings and the mono-layer Cr/CrN, Zr/ZrN, Ti/TiN, TiAl/TiAlN ones were investigated, deposited onto the substrate from the CuZn4OPb2 brass. It was found out that the structure of the PVD coatings put down with the reactive magnetron sputtering method is composed of fine crystallites and that their average size is in the range of 50-250 nm, depending on the coating type. The duplex coating structure {111} and {100} or {110} and {311} occurs in most cases, which is a consequence of the many factors influencing the change of the resulting energy vector direction, according to which the condensate is oriented. The investigated mono-layer coatings demonstrate the columnar structure, which results in decreasing the corrosion resistance of the coatings. There is a strong relationship between the structure of the developed coatings and their functional properties. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.