Ceramic coatings have been proven to be a good choice for preventing t
he base material from wear, corrosion, erosion and other unfavourable
damage. In the field of thin solid films (< 10 mu m), titanium nitride
(TiN) is still the most widely accepted in engineering applications.
Over the last years, chromium-base (Cr-base) coated tools have come on
to the market. Consequently, deeper knowledge of Cr-base coatings is i
ndeed required. Therefore, we conducted a series of experiments to ass
ess the potential of chromium nitride (CrN) and chromium carbonitride
(Cr(C,N)) coatings. For comparison, TiN was also studied under identic
al conditions. The results showed that the surface micro-hardness of 1
0 mu m CrN was the highest and the tribological performance of CrN and
Cr(C,N) was excellent. Thus, CrN is expected to have potential to rep
lace TiN in terms of wear resistance. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.