Impact Resistance and Properties of (Cr,Al,Si)N Coatings Deposited by Gas Flow Sputtering with Pulsed DC Supply

To increase the erosion and corrosion resistance of compressor blades, hard (Cr,Al,Si)N coatings are used. Physical vapor deposition (PVD) is a well-known method for the deposition of nitride hard coatings. The application of pulse technique in power supply of conventional PVD technologies like magnetron sputtering shows a great potential for increasing the durability and lifetime of different tools and components. However, one disadvantage of conventional PVD is the line-of-sight characteristic. This is eliminated by means of the convection-driven transport mechanism in high speed physical vapor deposition (HS-PVD) technology, based on gas flow sputtering. Herein, the influence of gas flow sputtering with bipolar pulsed direct current (DC) power supply on coating properties and impact resistance of (Cr,Al,Si)N/substrate compound is investigated. Thereby, (Cr,Al,Si)N coatings are deposited onto X3CrNiMo13-4 by HS-PVD using continuous DC and bipolar pulsed DC supply. Nanoindentation analyses show an increase in indentation hardness using pulsed DC compared with continuous DC. Moreover, the lowest imprint depth and degree of cohesive and adhesive failures are observed in this case. These release a high potential for pulsed power supply in HS-PVD, resulting in denser morphology, higher hardness and impact resistance compared with DC.