Sintered powder high-entropy target cathodes for wear-resistant coatings

Modern machine-building production equipped with high-performance mechatronic systems and numerically-controlled and adaptive control machines for blade cutting of heat-resistant chromium-nickel and titanium alloys requires increasing the operating properties of cutting tools working at high temperature-force loads in the contact zone, respectively with a significant stress-strain state of the cutting wedge. It is possible to solve the problem of increasing wear resistance and serviceability by developing and introducing new tooling material, as well as by applying wear-resistant coatings. The paper presents the results on development of technology for obtaining high-entropy target cathodes by spark plasma sintering with subsequent application of wear-resistant coatings on metal-cutting tools by both magnetron and ion-plasma methods. Samples of sintered high-entropy target cathodes of different compositions (more than fourteen) and at different modes of their sintering (depending on temperature in five modes) with their subsequent optimization and two standard sizes (20 and 80 mm) were obtained for further application of wear-resistant coatings on the magnetron unit. The authors carried out structural and phase analysis and studied physicomechanical properties of the obtained high-entropy target cathodes: density, hardness, electrical conductivity, emissivity. The possibility of obtaining high-entropy target cathodes by spark plasma sintering was confirmed experimentally, and the effect of sintering temperature on structure and properties of the sintered samples of high-entropy target cathodes was established. Dependence of physicomechanical and electrophysical parameters of target cathodes on technological modes of spark plasma sintering is shown.