Wear resistant super-hard multilayer transition metal-nitride coatings

Super-hard multilayer coatings are technologically promising materials for several applications in tribology. The advanced mechanical properties of such coatings can be tailored through unique phase combinations and interfacial architecture. Transition metal-nitride (TMN) multilayer coatings with the systematic combinations of TiN/CrN, TiN/ZrN and TiN/WN pairs were deposited on technologically relevant Si (100) and stainless steel (316LN) substrates, using reactive direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering. High wear resistance and a low friction coefficient in the TiN/WN multilayer are directly related to ultra-high hardness of 50.4 GPa. Such superior tribo-mechanical characteristics originate from strain hardening exhibited by the lattice mismatch across the TiN/WN interface.