Mechanical properties of Ti-Me-N coated polymer

Summary form only given, as follows. Summary form only given. Polymers frequently replace traditional engineering materials such as metals, glasses and ceramics. The utilization of polymers can further be enhanced by coating them by a protective layers, optical coatings, gas permeation barriers, and others. However, the desirable bulk properties of polymers are often compromised by unfavourable surface characteristics, such as low hardness, low resistance to abrasion and scratching, and low surface energy, that generally leads to poor adhesion. In our previous work, we synthesized Ti-Cu-N and Ti-Ag-N nano-composite films with various Cu and Ag contents. The hardness of Ti-Cu-N and Ti-Ag-N films could be significantly improved by addition of Cu and Ag, indicating that an appropriate amount of doping element was selected. The maximum hardness of these films reached to about 40GPa and friction coefficient was about 0.3 In our study, to overcome the film adhesion problem, we used a pretreatment of a polymer by atmospheric RF plasma After pretreatment, we have deposited Ti-Me-N, nano-composite films on polymer by magnetron sputtering. To analysis of atmospheric plasma and metal doping effect on plasma, we measured plasma states by Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES) and Residual Gas Analyzer (RGA). The deposition rate, microstructure, surface morphology of the films were studied using /spl alpha/-step profilometer, High Resolution X-Ray Diffraction(HRXRD), Transmission Electron Microscopy(TEM) and Atomic Force Microscope(AFM). The mechanical properties of metal doped transition metal nitride films were evaluated by nano-indentation test.