Chromium oxide-based multilayer coatings deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering in an industrial setup

Chromium oxide-based multilayers were deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering in an industrial setup by employing one-fold substrate rotation and cyclic variation of the O2 flow. This simple method allows deposition of multilayers comprising alternating layers of ~ 1 μm thickness of columnar α-Cr2O3 and mixed layers consisting of ~ 50 nm-thick sublayers of amorphous CrOx and nanocrystalline Cr2O3.