Effects of bias voltage and temperature on mechanical properties of Ti–Si–N coatings deposited by a hybrid system of arc ion plating and sputtering techniques

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Ti–Si–N coatings were deposited on WC–Co substrates by a hybrid coating system of arc ion plating (AIP) and sputtering techniques. Effects of deposition temperature and substrate bias voltage on the microstructure and mechanical properties , such as microhardness , indentation elastic modulus of Ti–Si–N coatings were systematically investigated in this work. As the deposition temperature increased up to 300 °C, microhardness and indentation elastic modulus of the Ti–Si–N coating steadily increased. Higher temperature above 350 °C, however, caused the microhardness to decrease due to grain growth. The substrate bias voltage had an effect on the Si content in Ti–Si–N coating. Applying a small substrate bias voltage of −100 V in Ti–Si–N coatings induced compressive residual stress into the coating and modified its microstructure toward denser one due to ion bombardment effect. However, much higher substrate bias voltage of −400 V caused the diminution of Si content by re-sputtering phenomenon, which could result in a decline of nanocomposite characteristics of Ti–Si–N. The superior mechanical properties of the Ti–Si–N coatings were obtained at the deposition condition of 300 °C, −100 V.