Titanium carbide coatings deposited by reactive ion beam-assisted, electron beam-physical vapor deposition

Titanium carbide (TiC), in addition to other transition metal carbides, has excellent wear-resistant properties in machining of stainless and high spe ed tool steels. TiC was successfully deposited on 304 stainless steel by re active loll beam-assisted electron beam-physical vapor deposition (RIBA, EB -PVD). The hardness values ranged from 1100 to 3500 VHN0.050 depending on t he processing parameters. The surface morphology and degree of texturing we re correlated with the processing conditions. Ion bombardment resulted in s trong surface and growth texture in primarily the (111) orientation. A chan ge from the (111) orientation to the (200) was observed at high substrate t emperatures. Vickers hardness, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray di ffraction (XRD) and electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) were used to charac terize these films. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.