Defect growth in multilayer chromium nitride/niobium nitride coatings produced by combined high power impulse magnetron sputtering and unbalance magnetron sputtering technique

Abstract

Defect growth in multilayer chromium nitride/niobium nitride coatings produced by combined high power impulse magnetron sputtering and unbalance magnetron sputtering technique. Thin Solid Films, 636, 558-566.

Effect of chamber pressure on defect generation and their influence on corrosion and tribological properties of HIPIMS deposited CrN/NbN coatings

“…The images of the coating surfaces (130 µm × 90 µm) were captured using a digital camera attached with the microscope. The defect density was then quantified from binary pictures of the coatings [16]. This study was conducted to determine the effect of the chamber pressure on defect formation.…”

“…Detailed study about these defects can be found elsewhere [16,41]. The relationship of defect density (percentage of area covered by defects) with the chamber pressure is shown in Fig.…”

“…Additionally, previous research revealed that HIPIMS generated plasma is free from the droplet phase [8][9][10]15,16]. For the HIPIMS process, applied power is not constant; rather HIPIMS is associated with a pulsed power supply where the peak power exceeds the average power by typically two orders of magnitude [10].…”

“…Deposition parameters such as deposition time, substrate temperature and bias voltage are influential on the coating growth mechanism [16,[23][24][25][26][27]. Therefore, these parameters could also affect the coating defect formation.…”

“…Both the corrosion and tribological performances of CrN/NbN coatings (deposited by Arc or conventional magnetron sputtering techniques) have already been investigated [21,22,31,32]. The benefits of using HIPIMS over conventional PVD to deposit CrN/NbN have been also demonstrated [16,33,34]. However, the impact of defects on the coating performance of HIPIMS deposited CrN/NbN was understudied and so far, very little attention was given towards the coatings defects associated with HIPIMS.…”