APPLICATION OF METAL-C-H LOW-FRICTION LAYERS FOR BEARING MATERIALS

Metal-containing carbon films are deposited on to the surfaces in ques tion by means of various plasma-aided deposition procedures. Unlike th e metal vapour generation usually used by a sputtering process we prod uce chromium- or titanium-stabilized carbon films by means of vacuum a re evaporation. A hollow cathode are plasma is utilized for substrate cleaning and preparation steps. We have directed our attention to low deposition temperatures under warranting the adherence of the film. Th e adhesion measured by scratch test differs between critical loads of 35-50 N. This behaviour depends very heavily on the technological para meters of pretreatment and the ion cleaning procedure. With a metal co ntent from 10 to 20 at.% the films demonstrate high, plastic hardness up to 15 GPa for a modulus of elasticity of approximately 100 GPa. Wit h static depositions we attained deposition rates of up to 20 mu m h(- 1). By optimizing the process we obtained a friction value of approxim ately 0.1 for the film-metal pairing and low abrasive wear rates at th e uncoated counterpart.