Synthesis of Nanocomposite TiSiCN Coatings by Titanium Evaporation and Organosilicon Compound Activation in Hollow Cathode Arc Discharge

Abstract

TiSiCN coatings have been obtained by anode evaporation of titanium and the decomposi-tion of hexamethyldisilazane in an arc discharge, using a self-heated hollow cathode, at the pressure rate of 1 mTorr of the Ar+N2 gas mixture. The proposed method makes it possible to independently and widely change the amount of metal and precursor vapor flows, the pressure and composition of the vapor-gas mixture and the degree of ionic interaction on the surface of the growing coating within a single discharge system. The paper presents the method and the results of the effect of a current discharge (10–50 A), and the flux of precursor vapours (0–1 g/h), on deposition rates, compositions, and properties of TiSiCN coatings deposited by an advanced combined PVD+PECVD method. Dense homogeneous TiSiCN coatings up to 6 µm thick and up to 27.5 GPa in hardness were obtained at 7.5 µm/h. The composition of the obtained coatings has been studied by X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and it has been shown that the presented methods can form nanocomposite coatings with nanocrystallites TiC, TiN, and TiCxN1−x 3–10 nm in the amorphous matrix based on SiCN. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.