Publication details
Probing the structure and the hardness of titanium/carbon nanocomposite coatings deposited by hybrid PVD/PECVD process
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2012 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Titanium/carbon nanocomposite hard coatings, which consist of TiC nanoparticles buried in an amorphous carbon matrix, have been prepared by a hybrid plasma process combining magnetron sputtering of a titanium target and plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition using methane as a source for amorphous carbon. The chemical composition of the bulk has been determined by Rutherford backscattered spectroscopy, and wavelength dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The surface composition has been evaluated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy before and after argon ion erosion. Bulk and surface analysis techniques did not provide the same results. The origin of these differences is discussed in details. Moreover, the structure of the coatings has been extensively probed by transmission electron microscopy, which has shown that when increasing the carbon content within the coating the size of the TiC nanoparticles shrinks. We further demonstrate that this structural evolution has a direct impact on the hardness of the coatings which gets reduced when the carbon content increases. |