Tribo-mechanical performance and antibacterial activity in (Cu, Zr)-alloyed Ti(Al)N coatings synthesized by reactive magnetron sputtering

Abstract In this work, copper and zirconium were added into the Ti(Al)N matrix to form deposited on TiAl(Cu, Zr)N coating using RF magnetron sputtering system in order to improve the mechanical, wear performance, and antibacterial activity. Results revealed that the TiAl(Cu, Zr)N coatings have a dense structure with (111) preferential orientation. The deposited TiAl(Cu, Zr)N coatings exhibited fcc-TiN structure, whereas the addition of Zr and Cu into the Ti(Al)N induced the appearance of Cu and ZrN. The solid solution strengthening and the increase in compressive residual stress (− 2.54 GPa) of Ti(Al, Zr)N coating with higher lattice strain (+ 0.1520) by the addition of Zr improved the hardness from 20.9 GPa. For the tribological property, the friction coefficient and wear rate decreased from (0.45, 5.9 × 10 −3 mm 3 /Nm) for the TiAlN to (0.29, 4.2 × 10 −5 mm 3 /Nm) for the Ti(Al, Zr)N, respectively, with high elasto-plastic H/E, H 3 /E 2 (0.076, 0.121 GPa) ratios due to the low surface roughness, high adhesion, and nanocomposite structure. The results indicated the addition of Zr improves the friction property of Ti(Al)N coating. Although with their lower hardness than Ti(Al)N coating, the Ti(Al, Cu)N coating with 9.2 at.% Cu exhibited an excellent wear resistance and good antibacterial activity, which demonstrates its potential as a candidate material for biomedical application. Graphical Abstract