Corrosion and Tribo-Corrosion of Hard Coating Prepared by Advanced Magnetron Sputtering

Abstract

Hard coatings are widely used in modern manufacturing industry as an abrasion-resistant coating, which helps to improve the wear resistance and corrosion resistance of the workpiece and prolong its service life. However, in most application environment the coatings are subjected simultaneously to both wear and corrosion phenomena, which is termed tribo-corrosion. The conjoint action of wear and corrosion is often more intense than pure corrosion and pure wear effects alone. It is necessary to fabricate coating with excellent resistance against both wear and corrosion and study the tribological behavior under corrosive environment. Recently, an emerging technology, High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering (HiPIMS), has gained much interest and become a hot topic of research due to the unique properties it can achieve. In HiPIMS the power is applied to the target in pulses of low duty cycle and frequency to generate ultra-dense plasma that makes it possible to deposit hard, dense, and smooth films, which may help to improve not only mechanical properties but also the anticorrosion ability of hard coatings.