New nanoscale multilayer magnetron sputtered Ti-DLC/DLC coatings with improved mechanical properties

Two sets of nanoscale multilayer Ti-DLC/DLC coatings, with similar chemical composition but different periods between consecutive layers (0.4 and 5.5 nm), were deposited by non-reactive direct current magnetron sputtering using different rotational speeds of the substrate holder (12 and 1 rpm, respectively) in this work. The results show that the overall Ti content in the coatings varied from ≈ 2.9 to ≈ 8.2 at. % in both cases. Significant fluctuations in the Ti concentration between the middle points of the DLC and Ti-DLC layers were observed for the coatings deposited at 1 rpm. All the coatings deposited were mainly amorphous, presenting a columnar structure and a cauliflower-like granular surface morphology. The sp2/sp3 ratio increased as the concentration of Ti rose. The coatings deposited at 1 rpm demonstrated better mechanical properties (up to 33 % improvement in hardness and up to 25 % improvement in the elastic modulus) when compared to the equivalent coatings deposited at 12 rpm. The multilayer titanium doped coating (deposited at 1 rpm) with 5.9 at. % Ti presented the most significant improvement in mechanical properties when compared to pure DLC and monolayer coatings deposited at 12 rpm. The results confirmed that it is possible to tune the performance of this type of coatings by depositing alternating layers of pure DLC and Ti-doped DLC.