AVS 62nd International Symposium & Exhibition
    Advanced Surface Engineering Monday Sessions
       Session SE+AS+NS+TR-MoM

Paper SE+AS+NS+TR-MoM4
Stress Design of Multi-layered Coatings

Monday, October 19, 2015, 9:20 am, Room 212A

Session: Nanostructured Thin Films and Coatings
Presenter: Wolfgang Seidl, Christian Doppler Laboratory for Application Oriented Coating Development at the Institute of Materials Science and Technology, Vienna University of Technology, 1040 Vienna, Austria
Authors: W.M. Seidl, Christian Doppler Laboratory for Application Oriented Coating Development at the Institute of Materials Science and Technology, Vienna University of Technology, 1040 Vienna, Austria
M. Arndt, Oerliko Balzers, Oerlikon Surface Solutions AG, 9496 Balzers, Liechtenstein
P. Polcik, Plansee Composite Materials GmbH, 86983 Lechbruck am See, Germany
P.H. Mayrhofer, Vienna University of Technology, Austria
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Residual stresses within physical vapour deposited coatings are a major concern, as they are often the origin of failure and delamination. Furthermore, stresses, which typically scale with the thickness, limit the thickness of the coating. With increasing stresses, the interface region is increasingly stressed and weakened, promoting delamination and buckling effects. CrN coatings are known to allow for moderate compressive or even tensile stresses, enabling the preparation of coating thicknesses above 20 μm. Although CrN coatings exhibit excellent tribological and wear resistance properties, their thermal stability with respect to Cr-N dissociation is limited to 900 °C, which limits their application field. However, several applications require higher thermal stability in combination with relatively thick ceramic coatings. Therefore, we study in detail the requirements to develop nitride-based coatings with thicknesses exceeding 20 μm.

The residual stresses of arc evaporated TiN, CrN, TiAlN, CrAlN, and TiAlTaN coatings, prepared with an industrial sized coating plant (Balzers Oerlikon INNOVA), are investigated as a function of their thicknesses by measuring the curvature of one-side coated Si(100) cantilevers. Based on these studies we developed multilayer arrangements of TiN/CrN, TiAlN/CrN, TiAlN/CrAlN, and TiAlTaN/CrAlN thick coatings. Their stresses are designed through variations in bilayer period and arrangements of the cathodes at the sidewalls of the industrial chamber.

The individual coatings and multilayers are additionally investigated with respect to growth morphology (by cross sectional scanning electron microscopy), hardness and indentation moduli (by nanoindentation), structure and crystallographic phases (by X-ray diffraction).