Improved Adhesion and Tribological Properties of AlTiN-TiSiN Coatings Deposited by DCMS and HiPIMS on Nitrided Tool Steels

Hard coatings, such as AlTiN-TiSiN, deposited by Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) techniques are widely used in industrial applications to protect and increase the lifetime of components, cutting tools, dies, forming tools. Despite their great properties, high hardness wear oxidation resistance, they limited cases severe conditions due poor adhesion between coating substrate. Duplex treatments have commonly been improve adhesive properties PVD especially those cathodic arc evaporation type. The purpose this study is achieve coatings with good Magnetron Sputtering processes but higher than that achieved these techniques, thus achieving can be under most conditions. In work, an AlTiN-TiSiN was a combination DC (DCMS) High-Power Impulse (HiPIMS) after gas nitriding pretreatment on 1.2379 Vanadis 4 tool steels. Mechanical (ultra-microhardness scratch tests) tribological tests were carried out improvement coating. Duplex-treated samples showed improved substrate, second critical load (Lc2) values greater 100 N. Furthermore, toughness resistance. These results show type technique could extreme compete other date not able with.