The effect of microstructure and composition on mechanical properties in thick-layered nanocomposite Ti–Si–C–N coatings

Recently great emphases have been placed on material characteristics, such as hardness and toughness in development of protective hard coatings. This work aims to investigate the microstructures and mechanical properties of rather thick Ti–Si–C–N coatings, deposited by a plasma enhanced magnetron sputtering (PEMS). It has been evidently proved that Ti–Si–C–N coatings can effectively enhance hardness due to nanocomposite structure. The composition of the Ti–Si–C–N coatings was quantitatively measured with an electron probe microanalyzer (EPMA). Detailed microstructure of the Ti–Si–C–N coatings was performed by a transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The X-ray diffractometry (XRD) was also used to further identify microstructures. The results indicated that the hardness and microstructures of thick Ti–Si–C–N coatings were strongly affected by the Si contents. A nanocomposite coating with nano grains embedded in amorphous matrix was revealed.