Microstructure, Mechanical, Oxidation and Corrosion Properties of the Cr-Al-Si-N Coatings Deposited by a Hybrid Sputtering System

Abstract

CrN and Cr-Al-Si-N coatings were deposited on SUS304 and Si-wafers by a hybrid coating system. The Cr and Al-Si target were connected to the cathode arc ion plating (AIP) and high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS), respectively. Various Al and Si contents in the coatings were obtained by changing the power of Al-Si target from 0 to 1 kW. The results demonstrated a face-centered cubic structure in all of the coatings. With increasing Al-Si target power, both the density and mean diameter of the macroparticles on the coating surface declined. As Al and Si contents increased, the microstructure of the Cr-Al-Si-N coatings evolved from a dense column structure, to a finer grain column structure, and then to a compact granular-like structure. The hardness of the coatings increased from 21.5 GPa for the pure CrN coating, to a maximum value of~27 GPa for the Cr-Al-Si-N coating deposited at 0.4 kW, which was mainly attributed to the solid solution strengthening and increased residual stress. The addition of Al and Si contents led to enhanced wear resistance against alumina balls at both room and elevated temperatures. Meanwhile, the Cr-Al-Si-N coatings also exhibited an excellent resistance to high-temperature oxidation at 800 and 1000 • C, and improved corrosion resistance, as compared with CrN coatings.

Influence of N2/Ar Flow Ratio on Microstructure and Properties of the AlCrSiN Coatings Deposited by High-Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering

“…The XRD pattern demonstrated the increasing crystallinity in the coatings, in consideration of the intensifying fcc-AlN peak, abrupt appearance of hcp-AlN, and broadening of all peaks (see Figure 2). The CrAlSiN coating, with a hardness of up to 27 GPa, was obtained by Ding et al [31] by adjusting AlSi content, which demonstrated improved corrosion resistance, and excellent resistance to high-temperature oxidation at 800 °C and 1000 °C. Compared with other nanocomposite coatings, the hardness of the coating in this study was surprisingly low, which was certainly related to its relatively low crystallinity and the role of amorphous Si3N4 in the coating.…”

Ta–Zr–N Thin Films Fabricated through HIPIMS/RFMS Co-Sputtering

“…The as-deposited Ta-Zr-N thin films with a wide Zr/(Ta + Zr) ratio range of 0. 16 [6] retained their preannealing values after annealing at 600 • C in 15-ppm O 2 -N 2 for 4 h. Moreover, the DC-sputtered Ta 1−x Zr x N y thin films were near-stoichiometric, whereas the Ta-Zr-N thin films in this study were understoichiometric. Furthermore, the DC-sputtered Ta 1−x Zr x N y thin films with a higher Zr content gathered a higher O content after annealing, which was in contrast to the Ta-Zr-N thin films prepared in this study.…”

“…The low deposition rate in the HIPIMS process became a drawback for the commercial applications [10,14]. Therefore, hybrid processes, such as HIPIMS/DCMS (direct-current magnetron co-sputtering) [15] and HIPIMS/AIP (arc ion plating) [16] were utilized. In this study, co-deposition of radio-frequency magnetron sputtering and HIPIMS (hereafter, HIPIMS/RFMS co-sputtering) was used to improve the Chemical composition analysis was conducted by using a field-emission electron probe microanalyzer (FE-EPMA, JXA-8500F, JEOL, Akishima, Japan) on the surface of the samples.…”

High Temperature Oxidation Behaviors of CrNx and Cr-Si-N Thin Films at 1000 °C

“…Several attempts have been made to improve the mechanical properties and high temperature oxidation resistance of CrN films. For example, either by adding other elements to form solid solution films [6,7] or nanocomposite films [8][9][10][11], or by changing the microstructure of monolithic CrN coatings into heterogeneous multilayered thin films [12][13][14][15] have been applied. Silicon has been used to effectively improve both the mechanical properties and thermal stability of TiN/a-SixNy [16], Cr-Si-N [8][9][10][11], and other CrN-based coatings [17][18][19][20].…”