Mechanical and tribological characteristics of a-C:H:SiOx films formed by PACVD on titanium alloy VT1-0

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the study of the mechanical and tribological properties of aC:H:SiOx films deposited on a titanium alloy VT1-0 by a plasma chemical deposition method using pulsed bipolar bias voltage. It was shown that after deposition of 2 [mu]m-thick a-C:H:SiOx film on a titanium alloy VT1-0 sample, the root-mean-square surface roughness Rq measured using atomic force microscopy decreased from 74 to 50 nm compared to the original substrate. The surface hardness H measured using nanoindentation increased from 3.3 to 12.4 GPa with an almost unchanged elasticity modulus E. As a result, the plasticity index (H/E) of titanium samples increased from 0.03 to 0.11, and the plastic deformation resistance (H3/E2 ) increased from 3 to 156 MPa. Deposition of a-C:H:SiOx film on the titanium alloy VT1-0 surface makes possible to reduce the friction coefficient from 0.3-0.6 to 0.1 and the wear rate from 6·10-4 to 7•10{-6} mm{3} /Nm.