Characterisation of Adhesion Strength of Nano-structured Coatings

Abstract

This research focused on the characterisation of coating adhesion or adhesion strength ofsuperhard coating, TiB2-based nano-structured coatings. The nano-structured coating was fabricatedusing magnetron sputtering. Micro-scratch test was used to examine the coating adhesion andscratch resistance. Attempts to enhance the adhesion strength of TiB2-based nano-structuredcoatings by controlling the deposition parameters, such as, sputter target power, substratetemperature, sputtering time are also presented. In addition, in order to enhance the coating adhesion,graded and multilayer techniques between TiB2 and tough material, e.g. Ti and Al were also proposedand employed.

Keywords : Titanium Diboride Coating / Micro-scratch / Magnetron Sputtering / Adhesion