Abstract
Cathodic arc technology has, in the past, suffered from a number of severe problems when implemented in industrial production environments, despite its undisputable basic physical advantages for the deposition of functional hard coatings. The disadvantages concern, in particular, the following fields: insufficient control of the arc source (rate, target poisoning, target erosion, arc stability), unsatisfactory process control (temperature control, mixing of tools with different sizes and dimensions), poor film structure (droplet formation, columnar growth), poor reproducibility of main film parameters, still too high cost of operation (maintenance, cleaning, etc.), and lack of complete automated process control. Within the PLATIT concept a new type of arc source has been developed, capable of overcoming most of these limitations. Together with dedicated process control in a new coating system, good results can be obtained under industrial production conditions for a variety of applications. Special emphasis was put on reducing internal film stresses for TiN and TiCN coatings. In this way, films up to 20 μm thick could be deposited. Thick coatings (approximately 8 μm) applied on punching and deep-drawing dies show considerable increases in performance never attained so far. A completely automated coating system permits the reproducible deposition of complex film structures and multi-layers in a very economical way. The PLATIT system has proved to satisfy the requirements of high quality combined with high productivity for cutting tools as well as the criteria of compactness and low droplet density for mould injection tool applications.
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