High temperature tribological properties of TiAlSiN/NiCr multilayer coatings with different modulation periods

In this work, TiAlSiN/NiCr multilayer coatings with different modulation periods were deposited by cathodic-arc techniques, which combined filtered cathode vacuum arc (FCVA) and cathodic-arc ion plating (CAIP) techniques to deposit sublayers at different bias voltages. The nanoscale multilayer coating (TiAlSiN: 88 nm; NiCr: 9 nm) exhibited excellent oxidation resistance and thermal stability. Annealed coatings at 900 °C in air for 1 h, the thickness of the oxide layer of N32 coating is only 0.91 μm and the increase in coating thickness was only 9.01%, while the thickness of oxide layer of monolayer TiAlSiN coating is 3.02 μm and thickness increasing of 122.28%. Due to the existence of numerous interfaces, the N32 coating exhibited the lowest wear rate of 1.92 × 10−7 mm3N−1m−1 at 600 °C under abrasive wear and adhesive wear mechanisms. In parallel, a new AlNi intermetallic compound with excellent thermal stability was characterized by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) at the coating interfaces. This compound is derived from different cathodic-arc techniques and bias voltages used to deposit coatings, which provides a reference for the structural design of coatings facing thermal environments.