Author(s)

Nicoletta De Vietro, Gianluigi Intonti, Francesco Fracassi, Gianluca Quarta, Lucio Maruccio, Lucio Calcagnile

CEDAD (Centre for Dating and Diagnostics), Department of Engineering for Innovation, University of Salento, Lecce, Italy.
Department of Chemistry, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, Bari, Italy.

Hydrogenated amorphous carbon coatings, deposited by low pressure plasma to minimize the wear of C100 steel components, were optimized and characterized. In order to ensure good adhesion of the films to the steel surface, a thin Ti interlayer was deposited, by magnetron sputtering, before the plasma deposition. The chemical characterization of the deposits was performed by means of RAMAN, XPS, RBS and ERDA analysis, while nanoindentation, nanoscratch and nanowear tests allowed to estimating the tribomechanical properties of the deposits, with the aim of evaluating their scuff-resistance. It was found that the optimized plasma deposited hydrogenated amorphous carbon coatings were well adherent to C100 steel and increased more than 70% its surface hardness.

PE-CVD, C100 Steel, Scuff-Resistant a-C:H Coatings

De Vietro, N. , Intonti, G. , Fracassi, F. , Quarta, G. , Maruccio, L. and Calcagnile, L. (2014) Plasma Enhanced-Chemical Vapour Deposition of Scuff-Resistant Hydrogenated Amorphous Carbon Coatings on C100 Steel. Journal of Surface Engineered Materials and Advanced Technology, 4, 131-139. doi: 10.4236/jsemat.2014.43017.