Improved Adhesion of the DLC Coating Using HiPIMS with Positive Pulses and Plasma Immersion Pretreatment

Diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings are used due to their extraordinary tribomechanical properties, great hardness, high elastic modulus, wear resistance, low friction coefficient and chemical inertness, which provide them with biocompatibility. Compared other physical vapor deposition (PVD) of transition nitrides carbonitrides, DLC has limited adhesion, so it is necessary develop new techniques overcome this limitation. This work reports the results scratch testing for measurement adhesion tests resistance nanoindentation in AISI 316L stainless steel coated a WC:C coating, produced using novel high-power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) technology positive pulses. In addition, use preceding surface modification technique, specifically plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII), was studied aim optimizing coating. The show how coating improved properties through pulse HiPIMS compared conventional HiPIMS, an result that reached critical load values 48.5 N 3.96 × 10−7 mm3/nm.