A cathodic arc enhanced middle-frequency magnetron sputter system for deposition of hard protective coatings

A new cathode arc enhanced magnetron sputter system for deposition of hard protective coatings is reported in this article. This system consists of eight targets: four outer targets are mounted on the wall of the chamber and four inner targets are placed around the center of the chamber. The outer and inner targets form four pair targets and are powered by four middle frequency power supplies. One of the outer targets can run either in the cathode arc mode or in the magnetron sputter mode. The Ti-containing diamond-like carbon nanocomposite coatings were deposited by using this system. The prepared coating exhibits high hardness (∼20 GPa), good adhesion (critical load is 50 N), very low friction coefficient (∼0.07), and excellent tribological performance with a wear rate of 1.4 × 10−16 m3-·N−1·m−1.