Investigation of filtered vacuum arc plasma application for TiAlN and TiSiB coatings deposition using ion beam and plasma material processing

• New modification of vacuum arc plasma macroparticle filter is described.
• High-frequency short-pulsed plasma immersion ion treatment is applied.
• Several different plasma and ion sources with macroparticle filtering were used.
• TiAlN, TiSiB macroparticle free coatings formation is investigated.

The paper studies the formation of TiAlN and TiSiB coating by macroparticle filtered vacuum arc plasma, high-frequency short-pulsed plasma immersion and repetitively pulsed high-current ion beam implantation. A new design of an axially symmetric plasma filter is described. The samples were pretreated by a repetitively pulsed high-current ion beam and plasma source “Rainbow-5” and high-frequency (100 kHz) short-pulsed (8 μs) metal plasma immersion ion surface treatment. Macroparticle-filtered metal plasma deposition was realized under ion beam mixing or using high-frequency short-pulsed negative bias. The work yields the surface morphology, elemental composition, and mechanical properties of coatings.