What materials are hard PVD ceramic coatings made of?
PVD coatings are incredibly hard, unlike other methods like powder coatings. The IVth, Vth, and VIth groups of the periodic table’s carbides, nitrides, borides, and silicides are typically good candidates for these thin film coatings. Metals are deposited to create the materials under an environment of nitrogen, hydrocarbons, or silicides. The surface of the substrate is where the ceramic compound is thought to form. TiAlCN, a type of titanium aluminium carbo-nitride, is an illustration of such a hard ceramic.
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Magnetron sputtering
The PVD vacuum surface coating method, magnetron sputtering, is the focus of this website since it is the one that is most frequently employed and has the widest range of applications. However, by visiting the links, the fundamentals of arc evaporation and pulsed laser ablation are shown.
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The arc evaporation coating deposition process
Within a vacuum deposition room, this PVD surface coating procedure takes place. A high current, low voltage arc is struck on a cathode’s surface to start the arc evaporation coating deposition process. This produces a cathode spot, a small (typically a few microns across) highly energetic emitting area. A crater is left on the cathode surface as a result of a high velocity jet of vapourized cathode material travelling at a speed of 10 km/s due to the extremely high localised temperature at the cathode spot (about 15000 °C).Read more.
High power pulsed magnetron sputtering (HPPMS/HIPIMS)
Thin film coatings with great adhesion, density, and low surface roughness can be created by high power pulsed magnetron sputtering (HPPMS/HIPIMS). This is mostly caused by the strong pulsed plasma that generates a lot of metal ions. Read more.
Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD)
A variety of target materials, including high-temperature superconductors, ferroelectrics, metals, polymers, and ceramics, can be deposited at ambient temperature using the vacuum-based PVD coating process known as pulsed laser deposition (PLD). Read more.
Nucleation and Growth
The film material is typically deposited atom by atom on a substrate using PVD coating methods including magnetron sputtering and arc evaporation by condensation from the vapour phase to the solid phase. Due to the establishment of interatomic attractive interactions, thermal mobility considerations, and surface imperfections, this condensation step does not result from the random impingement of atoms that cling on the surface at the site of impact. Read more.
Effect of Pressure and Temperature
Pressure and temperature are two elements that have a significant impact on the coating quality during deposition. The Structure Zone Model (SZM), the first published work in this field, was created by Movchan and Demchishin. Other researchers subsequently expanded on this paradigm. The modern model is displayed below. 1992’s “CMN V2, Issue 3”. Read more.