Surface characteristics for the Ti-Al-N coatings deposited by high power impulse magnetron sputtering technique at the different bias voltages

High power impulse magnetron sputtering (HIPIMS) is the new PVD technique that has been widely used to deposit hard coatings. In this work, titanium-aluminum nitride (TiAlN) coatings were synthesized through using the HIPIMS technique with various bias voltages from -50 to -200 V. The influence of bias voltage on the microstructure, mechanical, and tribological properties of the TiAlN coatings were investigated. The results indicate that the Al content in TiAlN coatings decreased due to the selective resputtering. The preferred orientation altered from (111) to (200) and the peak shifted to lower 2 theta values which occurred as the bias voltage increased. The coatings with the best mechanical and tribological properties were obtained at the bias voltage of -150 and -100 V respectively. The influence of coating texture, surface roughness, and residual stress on the properties of the coatings was discussed. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.