Effect of SiC thickness on microstructure and mechanical properties of (AlCrTiZrV)N/SiC nano-multilayers film synthesized by reactive magnetron sputtering

Abstract

High-entropy alloy nano-multilayers film have been increasingly used in protective coatings due to the excellent performance. Among the many factors that affect the performance of the nano-multilayers film, the thickness of the modulation layer has a significant effect on the performance of the high-entropy alloy nano-multilayers film. In this work, the microstructure and mechanical properties of (AlCrTiZrV)N/SiC nano-multilayers films with different thicknesses of the SiC layers prepared by using reactive magnetron sputtering are studied systematically. The results show that under the influence of the template layer, the amorphous SiC layer undergoes crystallization transformation and grows co-epitaxially with the template layer, resulting in the enhancement in the hardness. The maximum hardness and modulus of elasticity of (AlCrTiZrV)N/SiC nano-multilayers film reach 31.5 GPa and 290.6 GPa when the thickness of SiC is 0.5 nm, which are significantly improved compared to the single layer (AlCrTiZrV)N. As the thickness of the SiC layer further increases, the cubic steady-state structure of the SiC layer returns to the amorphous state and the coherent epitaxial growth of the multilayers film is destroyed, resulting in a decrease in the hardness of the nano-multilayers film.