Enhancing mechanical and tribological performance of multilayered CrN/ZrN coatings

The CrN/ZrN multilayered coatings with nanoscale bilayer period were synthesized at different substrate rotary speeds (4–11 rpm) and reaction gas flows in an unbalances reactive dc magnetron sputter chamber. XRD, AES, XPS, Nano indenter and tribometer were employed to investigate the influence of substrate rotary speed, species of reaction gases and flows on microstructure, mechanical and tribological properties of the coatings. A layer structure with small modulation period synthesized by a proper percentage of NH3 in N2 reaction gas was proved to be of benefit to synthesize high hard (32 GPa) and low wear-resistant (wear rate: 0.3865 × 10− 5 mm3/Nm) CrN/ZrN coatings. These properties were related to strongly mixed Cr–N and Zr–N preferred orientations and nanolayer structure.