Mechanical and tribological characterization of low-temperature deposited PVD TiN coatings

Abstract

Three potential processes for TiN deposition at low temperatures (high current density plasma beam evaporation (200–320 °C), high current density plasma beam activated electron beam evaporation (220°C) and high current density plasma beam assisted sputtering (220°C)) are evaluated with respect to the resulting surface topography, hardness, scratch resistance and abrasive wear resistance of the deposited coatings. TiN coatings deposited using three different processes operating at standard temperature (450°C) were used as references. It is shown that it is possible to obtain low-temperature TiN coatings with retained properties (hardness, scratch and abrasion resistance) as compared with TiN coatings produced at standard temperatures. The results also indicate that, at low temperatures, activated evaporation seems to yield coatings with better mechanical and tribological properties than sputtering. An important observation is that the performance ranking of the investigated coatings differs with the parameters measured. This, in turn, implies that several methods must be utilized for evaluation of a candidate coating-substrate composite for a given application.