Wear resistance of titanium–aluminium–chromium–nitride nanocomposite thin films

Novel CrTiAlN multilayered nanocomposite thin films have been developed. They consist of alternating CrN and TiAlN layers of 10–12 nm individual thickness, up to a total thickness of 1–3μm. These coatings were grown on WC-Co insets and high-speed steel samples by simultaneous arc evaporation (physical vapour deposition, PVD) of pure Cr and Ti-Al alloy targets. Wear resistance of these coatings was studied through high temperature pin-on-disk experiments. Results demonstrate that this kind of coating structures improves several times the wear resistance at high temperature of commercially available TiAlN coatings.