Rare earth Ce-modified (Ti,Ce)/a-C:H carbon-based film on WC cemented carbide substrate

Abstract

WC cemented carbide suffers severe wear in water environments. A novel carbon-based film could be a feasible way to overcome this drawback. In this study, a rare earth Ce-modified (Ti,Ce)/a-C:H carbon-based film is successfully prepared on WC cemented carbide using a DC reactive magnetron sputtering process. The microstructure, mechanical properties, and tribological behavior of the as-prepared carbon-based film are systematically investigated. The results show that the doping Ti forms TiC nanocrystallites that are uniformly dispersed in the amorphous carbon matrix, whereas the doping Ce forms CeO2 that exists with the amorphous phase in the co-doped (Ti,Ce)/a-C:H carbon-based film. The mechanical properties of this (Ti,Ce)/a-C:H film exhibit remarkable improvements, which could suggest higher hardness and elastic modulus as well as better adhesive strength compared to solitary Ti-doped Ti/a-C:H film. In particular, the as-prepared (Ti,Ce)/a-C:H film presents a relatively low friction coefficient and wear rate in both ambient air and deionized water, indicating that (Ti,Ce)/a-C:H film could feasibly improve the tribological performance of WC cemented carbide in a water environment.

Effect of target power on the structure and tribological Properties of La-Ti/WS2 composite films prepared by unbalanced magnetron sputtering

“…Compared with 10 W power, the thickness of the composite film was significantly reduced, because of the introduction of La, the surface energy of the crystal nucleus was reduced, the number of nucleation was increased, the growth of coarse grain was restrained, and the growth rate of columnar crystal structure of WS 2 film was slowed down [17]. Due to the improvement of the film compactness, the oxidation resistance and bearing capacity were enhanced, and the friction coefficient were reduced and wear resistance were improved [18]. Figure 3 showed the XRD curves of composite films with different target powers.…”