The effect of nanolayer thickness on the structure and properties of multilayer TiN/MoN coatings

Abstract

The effect of nanolayer thickness on the structure and properties of nanocomposite multilayer TiN/MoN coatings is revealed. The multilayer (alternating) TiN/MoN coatings are prepared by the Arc-PVD method. The selected thickness of the nanolayers is 2, 10, 20, and 40 nm. The formation of two phases—TiN (fcc) and γ-Mo2N—is found. The ratio of Ti and Mo concentrations varies with varying layer thickness. The maximum hardness value obtained for different thicknesses of the layers does not exceed 28–31 GPa. The stability of TiN/MoN during cutting and tribological tests is significantly higher than that of products with TiN coatings. The nanostructured multilayer coatings with layer thicknesses of 10 and 20 nm exhibit the lowest friction coefficient of 0.09–0.12.