Comparison on the structural, mechanical and tribological properties of TiAlN coatings deposited by HiPIMS and Cathodic Arc Evaporation
Introduction
The mechanical and friction properties of binary titanium nitride (TiN) coatings obtained by Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) can cover a large spectrum of cutting performance needs. However, due to this material's low oxidation resistance – the oxidation onset point is around 600 °C – more efforts were needed to make this type of material more resistant to oxidation. By adding other elements such as aluminium (Al) to the films, these ternary coatings can improve their thermal behaviour and consequently, their in-service life [1,2]. The ternary titanium-aluminium-nitride (TiAlN) coatings have been studied due to their outstanding mechanical and physical properties, such as thermal stability, wear properties and corrosion resistance [3,4]. The focus for this type of coatings on commercial cutting tools is now to improve its sustainability in the machining process under a completely dry environment [5].
Cathodic Arc Evaporation (CAE) deposition of TiAlN coatings on cemented carbides is currently one of the main used technique in the industrial applications compared to direct current Magnetron Sputtering (dcMS) and High-Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering (HiPIMS) techniques. It has the advantage of having high deposition rates with a large ratio of ionized vapor [6]. However, the main disadvantage of CAE is the negative effect of microscopic droplets on the coating topography [7,8].
Since Mozgrin et al. published the first HiPIMS coating deposition in 1993 [9], HiPIMS has gained more and more substantial interest amongst industrialists as a future technique for coating applications. Over the last years, hard nitride coatings were deposited by HiPIMS and proposed to the market as an alternative to similar CAE coatings. On the other side, academic works have also reported interests for the mechanical properties of titanium nitride-based coatings synthesized by HiPIMS. It is difficult here to give an extensive view of the works already published, but some of them can be given as illustration. Firstly, it is claimed that this process leads to smoother surface coatings and it offers a better control of thin film growth morphology compared to CAE [6,10,11]. Alami et al. reported the enhanced ionization sputtering and thus an increased coating density of TiN HiPIMS coatings [12]. The improvement of the quality and the uniformity of TiAlN coatings deposited by HiPIMS were proposed by Shimizu et al. [13]. Hardness enhancements using HiPIMS were reported by Guillaumot et al. for AlN coatings [14]. However, as far as the authors know, a direct comparison between the same titanium nitride coatings processed by HiPIMS on the one hand and CAE on the other hand, and deposited on the same substrates and at the same substrate temperature was not really considered. Therefore, in this present work, we report the effect of different Ti50Al50N HiPIMS deposition conditions on the mechanical properties of the coating like the intrinsic stress, the hardness and the wear resistance in comparison to CAE coatings. The comparison covers the effect of pressure and bias, as well as the duty cycle on the time-dependent discharge characteristics and on the film chemistry and microstructure.
Section snippets
Experimental and characterization
A set of Ti50Al50N single layer coatings were deposited on mirror-polished silicon wafers (Si) with a crystal orientation of 100 ± 0.5° and on polished cemented tungsten carbide (WC-Co) plane discs, produced from a mixed powder of (WC-9%Co) and other carbide elements like (Ti, Ta, Nb) C with 14.55 g/cm3 density. Before depositing the coatings, both substrates were cleaned in an ultrasonic bath using ethanol for 5 min. The coatings were carried out by dcMS or HiPIMS technique inside a PVD coater
Results and discussion
Table 1 summarizes the main deposition conditions for the two processes and data for the TiAlN coatings with the composition determined by EDX and the structural information by XRD. In both types of coatings, the nitrogen is close to stoichiometry (±2 at.%), while the Al content is slightly lower by CAE coatings than by HiPIMS. This latter feature could be the effect of the droplet formation at the coating surface generally observed in Arc discharge as these droplets are generally reported to
Conclusions
Same hard Ti50Al50N coating deposited with the same composition and the same thickness by an CAE and a HiPIMS process, completed in few cases by also, Ti50Al50N coating deposited by dcMS have been performed. All these coatings, independently of the deposition process, have the same morphology with a very dense columnar structure, which is not affected by the substrate, silicon wafer or WC-Co and by the nature of the adhesive interlayer. However, there is a clear structural difference between
Abbreviations
- HiPIMS
High-Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering
- dcMS
direct-current Magnetron Sputtering
- CAE
cathodic Arc evaporation
- FE-SEM
Field-Emission Scanning Electron Microscope
- EDS
Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectrometer
- TC
Texture coefficient
- SAED
Selected Area Electron Diffraction patterns
- HRTEM
High Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy
- FFT
Fast Fourier Transformer
- Ra
Roughness average
CRediT authorship contribution statement
M-R. Alhafian: Conceptualization, methodology, investigation, design of experiments, writing – original draft, editing, and submission.
J-B. Chemin: Supervision, PVD set up, process parameterization, and review.
Y. Fleming: XRD measurements validation, methodology, and review.
L. Bourgeois: Scientific discussion, mechanical properties validation, and review.
M. Penoy: Fiber texture and pole figures measurements, and investigation.
R. Useldinger: Scientific discussion
F. Soldera: Supervision,
Declaration of competing interest
Mohamed Riyad AlHAFIAN reports financial support was provided by Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR).
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Dr. N. Valle (LIST) and Dr. J. Ghanbaja (Institute Jean Lamour, France) for their participations to the characterizations of our samples and for valuable discussions. The financial support from the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR) under the CORE PPP project funding for innovation and industry partnerships (C-PPP17/MS/11622578) is gratefully acknowledged, as well as the European Doctoral Program in Advanced Materials Science and Engineering (DocMASE) for the training of
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