“…The presence of tungsten carbide (WC) in the DLC coatings causes the formation of the nanocomposite structure composed of nanocrystalline WC phase dispersed in amorphous carbon matrix, which is beneficial to the improvement of the coating's properties. A reduction in the sp 3 bond and an increase in the sp 2 bond occurs in the DLC-W coating, due to the presence of tungsten, which forms WC and W2C nanoclusters in amorphous carbon matrix (DAI et al, 2015), leading to an increase in disorder and increasing the spacing between the carbon atoms, reducing the number of coordinated carbon atoms and the atomic density, thereby causing a decrease in the density (BAI et al, 2021;LIU et al, 2015DAI et al, 2015, which is also responsible for the reduction in the hardness of the DLC-W. These results corroborate previous works (HOVSEPIAN et al, 2016;KRŽAN;NOVOTNY-FARKAS;VIŽINTIN, 2009;EVARISTO;FERNANDES;CAVALEIRO, 2020;TAKENO et al, 2008;BAI et al, 2021;LIU et al, 2015DAI et al, 2015.…”