The Structure and Mechanical Properties of Ti-Si-B Coatings Deposited by DC and Pulsed-DC Unbalanced Magnetron Sputtering

The structure and mechanical properties of direct current (DC) and pulsed-DC unbalanced magnetron-sputtered Ti-Si-B thin films—hard coatings with the potential for excellent thermal stability and oxidation resistance—are investigated and reported in this paper. The coatings were deposited from composite sputter targets of titanium silicide/boride produced by self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS), a novel and cost-effective technique to produce bulk materials of complex compositions which are difficult to synthesise by other means. Hard (up to 37 GPa) Ti-Si-B coatings possessing amorphous, nanocrystalline and crystalline structures were deposited. The application of pulsed magnetron sputtering (PMS) was found to affect significantly the coating properties such as structure, thickness, hardness (H), reduced elastic modulus (Er) and thus H/Er ratio.