Tribological properties of multilayer tetrahedral amorphous carbon coatings deposited by filtered cathodic vacuum arc deposition

Abstract Tetrahedral amorphous carbon (ta-C) has emerged as an excellent coating material for improving the reliability of application components under high normal loads. Herein, we present results our investigations regarding mechanical and tribological properties a 2-µm-thick multilayer ta-C on high-speed steel substrates. Multilayers composed alternating soft hard layers are fabricated using filtered cathodic vacuum arc with substrate bias voltages (0 100 V or 0 150 V). The thickness ratio is discovered to be 1:3 sp 2 -rich 3 layers. show that hardness elastic modulus coatings increase content layer. reached approximately 37 GPa, whereas improved toughness higher adhesion strength (> 29 N) obtained. friction performance ( µ = 0.07) similar single layer thick coating, but wear rate (0.13 × 10 ?6 mm /(N·m)) load 30 N. We further demonstrate importance structure in suppressing crack propagation increasing resistance plastic deformation H / E ) ratio.