Characteristics of TiAlCN ceramic coatings prepared via pulsed-DC PACVD, part I: Influence of precursors' ratio

摘要

In this study, titanium aluminium carbonitride (TiAlCN) ceramic coatings with different precursors' ratio of AlCl3/TiCl4 were deposited on H13 hot work tool steel substrates, using pulsed-DC plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition method. The coatings showed a nanocomposite microstructure consisted of fcc-TiAlN and hcpAlN nanocrystalline grains and an amorphous carbon phase. Increasing the precursors' ratio from 0.5 to 3 led to an increase in Al content from similar to 10 to similar to 42 at.%. Moreover, with increasing the precursors' ratio, the surface roughness of the coating reduced initially from 21.39 to 14.44 nm, due to the creation of more nuclei of A1N and then it rose up to 18.26 nm. Coating with the precursors' ratio of 0.5 presented the highest microhardness of 3840 HV0.01,due to the less amount of chloride impurity and hcp-AlN phase. The precursors' ratio of 0.5 resulted in the highest wear resistance and lowest coefficient of friction of around 0.17.