Macroparticle induced corrosion for arc bond sputtering CrN/Nbn superlattice coatings

Transition metal nitride (TMxNy ) coatings prepared by physical vapor deposition (PVD) techniques have proven to be highly wear and corrosion resistant, thanks to the excellent combination of high hardness, electrical and thermal conductivity, and electrochemical nobility. Although a mere monolayer of binary TiNor CrN could have remarkable effect on increasing a machining tool's life in the early days, more complex ternary or higher coatings, with a functional base layer, or consisting of multiple layers, have been explored subsequently for enhanced performances in wear or corrosion. As for the coating techniques, while the traditionally classified evaporation deposition, sputter deposition, and ion plating (using relatively low keV ion beams to assist vapor deposition) have all been enjoying some success in achieving particular coating properties, recent years have seen the emergence of a particular promising sputter deposition technique, namely the arc bond sputtering (ABSTM), which combines the cathodic arc evaporation and unbalanced magnetron sputtering (UBM) in one process [1]