State Key Laboratory of Superhard Materials, Department of Materials Science, Key Laboratory of Automobile Materials, MOE, and Jilin University, Changchun, 130012, People's Republic of China.
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Physical Science and Engineering (PSE), Thuwal, 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia.
Sci Rep. 2017 Aug 24;7(1):9353. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-09807-9.
Either hardness or toughness has been the core interest in scientific exploration and technological pursuit for a long time. However, it is still a big challenge to enhance the hardness and toughness at the same time, since the improvement of one side is always at the expense of the other one. Here, we have succeeded in dealing with this pair of conflict based on tungsten (W) coating by doping boron (B) via magnetron co-sputtering. The results reveal that the introduction of low concentrations of B (6.3 at. %), in the doping regime, leads to the formation of W(B) supersaturated solid solution with refined grains. Meanwhile, the doping-induced higher compressive stress, higher H/E and denser microstructure result in a surprising combination of improved hardness (2 × larger than pure W) and superior toughness (higher crack formation threshold compared to pure W). We believe this is an innovative sight to design new generation of transition-metal-based multifunctional coatings. Besides, our results are applicable for industrial application because it can be realized by simple manufacturing approaches, e.g. magnetron sputtering technology.
长期以来，硬度或韧性一直是科学探索和技术追求的核心关注点。然而，同时提高硬度和韧性仍然是一个巨大的挑战，因为一方的改善总是以牺牲另一方为代价。在这里，我们通过磁控共溅射在掺硼（B）钨（W）涂层方面取得了成功。结果表明，在掺杂范围内引入低浓度的 B（6.3at.%）会导致形成具有细化晶粒的 W（B）过饱和固溶体。同时，掺杂引起的更高压缩应力、更高的 H/E 和更致密的微观结构导致了硬度（比纯 W 提高了 2 倍）和韧性（与纯 W 相比，裂纹形成门槛更高）的惊人组合。我们相信这是设计新一代过渡金属基多功能涂层的创新视角。此外，我们的结果适用于工业应用，因为它可以通过简单的制造方法实现，例如磁控溅射技术。
