Ion beam analysis, corrosion resistance and nanomechanical properties of TiAlCN/CNx multilayer grown by reactive magnetron sputtering

A novel TiAlCN/CNx multilayer coating, consisting of nine TiAlCN/CNx periods with a top layer 0.5 μm of CNx, was designed to enhance the corrosion resistance of CoCrMo biomedical alloy. The multilayers were deposited by dc and RF reactive magnetron sputtering from Ti0.5Al0.5 and C targets respectively in a N2/Ar plasma. The corrosion resistance and mechanical properties of the multilayer coatings were analyzed and compared to CoCrMo bulk alloy. Ion beam analysis (IBA) and X-ray diffraction tests were used to measure the element composition profiles and crystalline structure of the films. Corrosion resistance was evaluated by means of potentiodynamic polarization measurements using simulated body fluid (SBF) at typical body temperature and the nanomechanical properties of the multilayer evaluated by nanoindentation tests were analyzed and compared to CoCrMo bulk alloy. It was found that the multilayer hardness and the elastic recovery are higher than the substrate of CoCrMo. Furthermore the coated substrate shows a better general corrosion resistance than that of the CoCrMo alloy alone with no observation of pitting corrosion.