A Nanoscratch Method for Assessing Wear of Metal Carbide-Metal Nacreous Nanostructures

摘要

The wear resistance of metal carbide-metal nacreous nanostructures is compared to that of a solid metal carbide hard coating.A reciprocating nanoscratch method has been developed which allows the assessment of wear resistance of the film independent of substrate type or film-substrate adhesion.A series of nominally 1 micron thick TiC-based multilayer films on Si substrates were produced using RF magnetron sputtering.A scratch protocol consisting of70 reciprocal scratches each 9.5 mum in length was applied.Data reduction techniques were used to remove the effects of sample tilt and drift.The resulting normal displacement as a function of scratch cycles is used to compare the wear of different films on Si <111> substrates.Specific wear characteristics related to film morphology are examined.This investigation showed that this nanoscratch technique holds promise as a thin film wear characterization technique.