Tribological behavior of VC/Ni multilayer coatings prepared by non-reactive magnetron sputtering

Ceramic-metal multilayer coatings generally exhibit considerably enhanced wear resistance, due to an attractive combination of metal and ceramic phases. In this work, VC/Ni multilayer coatings were prepared with non-reactive magnetron sputtering. Tribological behavior of the coatings was investigated by ball-on-plate dry sliding tests, followed by in-depth microscopic examination of the worn surfaces. The VC/Ni multilayer coatings exhibited the wear rates of 10−15 m3/N m that was lowered by one order of magnitude in comparison with M2 tool steel. The results revealed that the wear process of coatings was influenced by the modulation period, and might further indicate that a sufficient thickness of hard layers was required to enhance the deformation resistance for optimizing the wear resistance of ceramic-metal multilayer coatings.