Supertough wear-resistant coatings with ‘chameleon’ surface adaptation

Nanostructured TiC/a-C coatings for low friction and wear resistant applications

“…By controlling the size and volume fraction of nanocrystalline phases in an amorphous matrix and consequently the separation width of amorphous matrix among the nanocrystallites, the properties of the nanocomposite coatings can be tailored, e.g., to make a balance between hardness and elastic modulus to permit close match to the elastic modulus of substrates [1], and particularly to obtain high toughness that is crucial for applications under high loading contact and surface fatigue [2]. In addition to these characteristics, amorphous carbon (a-C) based nanocomposite coatings exhibit not only excellent wear resistance but also low friction due to self-lubrication effects, which make them environmentally attractive because lubricants can be omitted.…”

Mechanical and tribological properties of Ti-containing carbon nanocomposite coatings deposited on TiAlV alloys

“…Some works have pointed out that the presence of hard TiC crystals can improve the tribological properties of carbon-based films [6][7][8][9] . In fact, the arrangement and size of the TiC crystals, as well as the growth mode of the carbon films (columnar or compact, for instance) are responsible for the changes on the final properties of coatings.…”

“…Nanocomposite coatings can be formed by small crystallites embedded in an amorphous matrix 5 . In general, hard crystallites (for instance, carbides, oxides and nitrides) dispersed into a softer matrix material can reduce the compound hardness and elastic modulus, but the nanocomposite coating becomes tougher [6][7][8] . Therefore the presence of these crystals as a second phase is an important parameter that must be taken into account for predicting the properties of nanocomposite coatings.…”

“…Therefore the presence of these crystals as a second phase is an important parameter that must be taken into account for predicting the properties of nanocomposite coatings. For example, hard titanium carbide (TiC) crystals embedded into a-C:H matrix can improve the wear resistance of coatings 8,9 . The small TiC crystals are, to a certain extent, responsible for the good fracture toughness of nanocomposite coatings, while the soft carbon-based matrix accounts for the self-lubrication properties 9 .…”

Nanostructure, mechanical and tribological properties of reactive magnetron sputtered TiCx coatings

“…One class of metal containing hard carbon based coatings are deposited by sputtering pure metal cathodes in inert/hydrobarbon gas mixtures, where coating deposition results from the reaction, at the substrate surface, of sputtered metal atom flux with gas phase ionic and radical hydrocarbon species generated from the glow discharge plasma [5]. In the last few years, advances in coating deposition technologies have resulted in the development of supertough wear-resistant coatings, based on nanocrystalline carbides (TiC, WC) in an amorphous diamond-like carbon matrix [6].…”