Investigation of filtered vacuum arc plasma application for TiAlN and TiSiB coatings deposition using ion beam and plasma material processing

•New modification of vacuum arc plasma macroparticle filter is described.•High-frequency short-pulsed plasma immersion ion treatment is applied.•Several different plasma and ion sources with macroparticle filtering were used.•TiAlN, TiSiB macroparticle free coatings formation is investigated.

The paper studies the formation of TiAlN and TiSiB coating by macroparticle filtered vacuum arc plasma, high-frequency short-pulsed plasma immersion and repetitively pulsed high-current ion beam implantation. A new design of an axially symmetric plasma filter is described. The samples were pretreated by a repetitively pulsed high-current ion beam and plasma source “Rainbow-5” and high-frequency (100 kHz) short-pulsed (8 μs) metal plasma immersion ion surface treatment. Macroparticle-filtered metal plasma deposition was realized under ion beam mixing or using high-frequency short-pulsed negative bias. The work yields the surface morphology, elemental composition, and mechanical properties of coatings.