Hard nanocomposite coatings: Thermal stability, oxidation resistance and toughness

Abstract The article reports on the enhanced hardness of nanocomposite coatings, their thermal stability, protection of the substrate against oxidation at temperatures above 1000 °C, X-ray amorphous coatings thermally stable above 1000 °C and new advanced hard nanocomposite coatings with enhanced toughness which exhibit (i) low values of the effective Young's modulus E ⁎ satisfying the condition H/E ⁎  > 0.1, (ii) high elastic recovery W e  ≥ 60%, (iii) strongly improved tribological properties, and (iv) enhanced resistance to cracking; here E ⁎  = E(1−ν 2 ), E is the Young's modulus and ν is the Poison's ratio. At the end trends of next development of hard nanocomposite coatings are briefly outlined.

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