Low Energy Plasma Processing for Wear Resistant Coatings

• Forschungsstelle: INNOSUISSE
• Projektnummer: 7507.1;4 EPRP-IW
• Projekttitel Englisch: Low Energy Plasma Processing for Wear Resistant Coatings

Kurzbeschreibung (Englisch)

Low Energy Plasma Processing for Wear Resistant Coatings

Abstract (Englisch)

Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) and Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD) are widely used methods for the production of wear resistant coatings for cutting tools and tools for stamping and forming, dies and moulds. Thermal CVD is restricted to high temperature substrate materials due to the high process temperatures (around 1000°C), PVD allows deposition temperatures below 400°C. While plasma enhancement in PVD is necessary to enhance the reactivity of the vaporised material and the reactive gas, plasma enhancement in CVD is necessary to decrease the deposition temperature. Plasma enhanced CVD (PECVD) for wear resistant coatings is today especially utilised for diamond and diamond-like coatings. The utilisation for oxides and other insulators of this deposition technology is very limited. One reason for this is the thermal stability of the layers under the harsh environmental conditions. In this project, we investigate a new plasma enhanced CVD process which is based on a complete dissociation of the gaseous precursors and a high degree of ionisation. The ion energies are below the sputter threshold. This allows an energy transfer to the substrate which contributes to a partial replacement of the high substrate temperature and is expected to allow the deposition of high quality layers of refractory insulators at moderate temperature. The objective of the project is the deposition of silicon nitride, silicon carbide and alumina at considerable lower substrate temperatures than in thermal CVD. The properties of the layers will be investigated with respect to wear resistance. The process knowledge will be utilized to define the requirement specification for a production system