Influence of deposition temperature and pressure on microstructure and tribological properties of arc ion plated Ag films

The films deposited at low temperature (LT-films) have increasingly attracted theoretical and technical interests since such films exhibit obvious difference in structure and performances compared to those deposited at room temperature. Studies on the tribological properties of LT-films are rarely reported in available literatures. In this paper, the structure, morphology and tribological properties of Ag films, deposited at LT (166 K) under various Ar pressures on AISI 440C steel substrates by arc ion plating (AIP), are studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and a vacuum ball-on-disk tribometer, and compared with the Ag films deposited at RT (300 K). XRD results show that (200) preferred orientation of the films is promoted at LT and low Ar pressure. The Crystallite sizes are 70 nm–80 nm for LT-Ag films deposited at 0.2 Pa and 0.8 Pa and larger than 100 nm for LT-Ag films deposited at 0.4 Pa and 0.6 Pa, while they are 55 nm–60 nm for RT-Ag films deposited at 0.2 Pa–0.6 Pa and 37 nm for RT-Ag films deposited at 0.8 Pa. The surfaces of LT-Ag films are fibre-like at 0.6 Pa and 0.8 Pa, terrace-like at 0.4 Pa, and sphere-like at 0.2 Pa, while the surfaces of RT-Ag films are composed of sphere-like grains separated by voids. Wear tests reveal that, due to the compact microstructure LT-Ag films have better wear resistances than RT-Ag film. These results indicate that the microstructure and wear resistance of Ag films deposited by AIP can be improved by low temperature deposition.