Qureshi Muhammad Waqas, Ma Xinxin, Tang Guangze, Miao Bin, Niu Junbo
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Welding and Joining, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China.
School of Materials Science & Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China.
Materials (Basel). 2021 Feb 9;14(4):826. doi: 10.3390/ma14040826.
The high-power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) technique is widely used owing to the high degree of ionization and the ability to synthesize high-quality coatings with a dense structure and smooth morphology. However, limited efforts have been made in the deposition of MAX phase coatings through HiPIMS compared with direct current magnetron sputtering (DCMS), and tailoring of the coatings' properties by process parameters such as pulse width and frequency is lacking. In this study, the CrAlC MAX phase coatings are deposited through HiPIMS on network structured TiBw/Ti6Al4V composite. A comparative study was made to investigate the effect of average power by varying frequency (1.2-1.6 kHz) and pulse width (20-60 μμs) on the deposition rate, microstructure, crystal orientation, and current waveforms of CrAlC MAX phase coatings. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were used to characterize the deposited coatings. The influence of pulse width was more profound than the frequency in increasing the average power of HiPIMS. The XRD results showed that ex situ annealing converted amorphous Cr-Al-C coatings into polycrystalline CrAlC MAX phase. It was noticed that the deposition rate, gas temperature, and roughness of CrAlC coatings depend on the average power, and the deposition rate increased from 16.5 to 56.3 nm/min. Moreover, the CrAlC MAX phase coatings produced by HiPIMS exhibits the improved hardness and modulus of 19.7 GPa and 286 GPa, with excellent fracture toughness and wear resistance because of dense and column-free morphology as the main characteristic.
高功率脉冲磁控溅射（HiPIMS）技术因其高电离度以及能够合成具有致密结构和平滑形貌的高质量涂层而被广泛应用。然而，与直流磁控溅射（DCMS）相比，通过HiPIMS沉积MAX相涂层的研究较少，并且缺乏通过脉冲宽度和频率等工艺参数来调整涂层性能的研究。在本研究中，通过HiPIMS在网状结构的TiBw/Ti6Al4V复合材料上沉积CrAlC MAX相涂层。通过改变频率（1.2 - 1.6 kHz）和脉冲宽度（20 - 60 μs）来研究平均功率对CrAlC MAX相涂层的沉积速率、微观结构、晶体取向和电流波形的影响，并进行了对比研究。使用X射线衍射（XRD）、扫描电子显微镜（SEM）和原子力显微镜（AFM）对沉积涂层进行表征。在提高HiPIMS的平均功率方面，脉冲宽度的影响比频率更为显著。XRD结果表明，异位退火将非晶态Cr - Al - C涂层转变为多晶CrAlC MAX相。值得注意的是，CrAlC涂层的沉积速率、气体温度和粗糙度取决于平均功率，沉积速率从16.5 nm/min增加到56.3 nm/min。此外，HiPIMS制备的CrAlC MAX相涂层具有致密且无柱状结构的主要特征，表现出提高的硬度和模量，分别为19.7 GPa和286 GPa，同时具有优异的断裂韧性和耐磨性。
