Multilayer coating of a nitride-containing compound and its production

Abstract: A multilayer coating of at least 2 layers of a nitride-containing compound in which at least one layer contains at least 2 atomic percent of nitrogen different than the nitrogen contained in an adjacent layer; and a method for producing the multilayer coating.

Description: The invention relates to a wear and erosion resistant coated substrate and its production. Resistance against erosion wear is normally related to the hardness of the wear part. Some articles are subject to solid particle erosion in which particles of various sizes and hardness are propelled at various angles against the surface of the articles. For example, a car traveling in the desert during a wind storm will encounter various size solid particles of sand traveling at various velocities hitting the car. If the size of the particles is large and the velocity of the particles is high, the coating on the car could be chipped or pitted. In turbomachines which operate in a dust environment, this solid particle erosion is a severe problem. Recently, physical and chemical vapour deposited coatings, such as titanium nitride coatings and zirconium nitride coatings, have been used to provide a protective layer having good hardness characteristics. These coatings have been found to have good erosion resistance to Al₂O₃ and SiO₂ particles at both high and low impact angles. Although these coatings have high hardness characteristics, they exhibit inherently brittle behavior and their erosion resistance at normal impact decreases markedly with increasing hardness and particle size of the erodent. It has been observed that dynamic impact of solid particle erodents onto a coated surface of an article can form lateral and/or median cracks around the impact site. Median cracks are responsible for the strength degradation of the material while lateral cracks, which grow from the centre of impact parallel to the substrate surface and then propagate through the coating surface, account for most of the material loss during solid particle impact erosion. The solid particle impact erosion of these coatings at a 90° impact angle is due primarily to brittle fracture. Thin coatings are more suspectible to spalling and exposure of the substrate which may lead to premature failure of the article. When coatings applied by conventional techniques are exposed to particle impact, pinholes and/or lateral spalling pits generally result in the coating. Once the coating material is cracked, additional impact by even relatively small particles will cause furrowing or grooves in the coating material. In a turbomachine, this furrowing can greatly effect the overall performance of the turbomachine. Based on the elastic-plastic theory, toughness and hardness are the dominant properties controlling the erosion behavior. Higher hardness is believed to increase erosion resistance at both low and high impingement angles while higher toughness reduces the vulnerability to brittle fracture and markedly increases 90° erosion resistance. An erosion resistant coating needs to be simultaneously hard and tough. However, hardness and toughness are generally in opposition in hard materials. Higher hardness is usually associated with greater brittleness. Multilayer hard compound materials have been found to have simultaneously high hardness and high toughness. The high hardness is an inherent property of hard compounds and the high toughness is attributed to the formation of a coherent or partly coherent interface boundary between two different hard compound layers. For example, it has been found that a TiC/TiB₂ multilayer coating has a better wear resistance than either the TiC or TiB₂ single layer. In cutting tool applications, the multilayer coated tool bits, having a TiC/Al₂O₃/TiN three layer coating, or a two layer coating in which one layer is a nitride, carbide, boride, or silicide of a metal of Group VI and the other layer is a nitride or carbide of a metal of Group VI, have shown good performance in wear resistance. EP-A-0 043 781 discloses a composite layer, which is able to simultaneously resist abrasion and fatigue caused by alternating stresses and corrosion, based on a transition metal such as titanium, tantalum, haffin or other metals. Specifically, the successive layer units would comprise a first layer of stoichiometric composition TiN followed by a second layer of a nonstoichiometric composition of TiN x where x is between 0.4 and 1 and then a third layer of a stoichiometric TiN composition. Thus, this reference teaches the necessity of having a stoichiometric composition of titanium nitride placed on both sides of a nonstoichiometric composition of titanium nitride. There is however no disclosure in this reference or teaching of the use of a multilayered coated substrate in which at least three adjacent layers are nonstoichiometric and furthermore that each layer contains at least 2 atomic percent of nitrogen different than the nitrogen contained in a nonstoichiometric adjacent layer. GB-A-2135337 likewise discloses a coating comprising a series of layers of titanium nitride interspersed with alternate layers of titanium. There is however no disclosure of at least three layers of a nitride-containing compound wherein the composition of each layer is a non-stoichiometric composition, and wherein each layer contains at least two atomic percent nitrogen different from the nitrogen contained in the adjacent layer. According to the present invention there is provided a multilayer coated article comprising a substrate coated with at least three layers of a nitride-containing compound wherein the composition of each layer is a nonstoichiometric composition which contains at least 2 atomic percent of nitrogen different than the nitrogen contained in an adjacent layer. Preferably at least one layer contains at least one additive selected from titanium, zirconium, titanium alloys and zirconium alloys. At least one layer could also contain at least one element selected from aluminium, vanadium, molybdenum, niobium, iron, chromium and manganese. The invention also relates to a method for producing a multilayer nitride-containing coating on a substrate which comprises: (a) placing a substrate to be coated in a chamber containing a target and a nitrogen-containing gas mixture; (b) evaporating the target to produce a vapour to react with the nitrogen in the nitrogen-containing gas mixture to form a nonstoichiometric nitride-containing layer of a desired nitrogen content on the substrate; (c) changing the ratio of nitrogen to titanium in step (b) to form another nonstoichiometric nitride-containing layer on the coated substrate that has a nitrogen content of at least 2 atomic percent of nitrogen different than the nitrogen contained in the previously deposited coating; and (d) repeating step (c) at least twice to form a multilayer coating of at least three nonstiochiometric nitride-containing layers in which at least one layer contains at least 2 atomic percent of nitrogen different than the nitrogen contained in an adjacent nonstoichiometric nitride-containing layer. The ratio of nitrogen to titanium can be changed by altering the current, changing the flow of nitrogen or a combination of both. One embodiment for producing a multilayer nitride-containing coating on a substrate would comprise the steps: (a) placing a substrate to be coated in a vapor deposition chamber having an anode and containing a titanium-based cathode along with a nitrogen-containing gas mixture; (b) applying a voltage across the cathode and anode to establish a current to effect evaporation of the titanium from the titanium-based cathode to produce a titanium vapor to react with the nitrogen in the nitrogen-containing gas mixture to form a nonstoichiometric titanium nitride-containing layer of a desired nitrogen content on the substrate; (c) changing the ratio of nitrogen to titanium in step (b) to form another nonstoichiometric titanium nitride-containing layer on the coated substrate that has a nitrogen content of at least 2 atomic percent of nitrogen different than the nitrogen contained in the previously deposited coating; and (d) repeating step (c) at least twice to form a multilayer coating of at least three layers. It has thus now been found possible to provide a multilayer coated substrate having good erosion and/or wear resistance characteristics to solid particle impact. It has thus also been found possible to provide a multilayer coated substrate in which each of the layers comprises a nitride-containing compound and in which the nitrogen content of one layer is different than the nitrogen content of an adjacent layer. It has thus further been found possible to provide a multilayer coated substrate in which each of the layers is a titanium nitride-containing compound and in which the nitrogen content of one layer is less than or more than the nitrogen content in an adjacent layer. It has still further been found possible to provide a multilayer coated substrate comprising at least three layers in which each layer comprises a titanium nitride-containing compound having an atomic percent of nitrogen from 33% to 55% and wherein the nitrogen content of one layer has at least 2 atomic percent of nitrogen more than the nitrogen contained in an adjacent layer. It has yet further been found possible to provide a multilayer coated substrate in which one layer is Ti₂N mixed with titanium nitride having an atomic percent of nitrogen of about 40% and an adjacent layer is titanium nitride having an atomic percent of nitrogen of 40% to 55% and wherein the nitrogen content of one layer has at least 2 atomic percent of nitrogen more than the nitrogen contained in the adjacent layer. Preferably, the nitrogen-containing gas mixture could be argon-nitrogen; krypton-nitrogen; helium nitrogen; xenon-nitrogen; neon-nitrogen or the like. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention the non-stoichiometric composition of the nitride-containing compound of each layer has an atomic percent of nitrogen from 33% to 55%, and preferably the non-stoichiometric composition of the nitride-containing compound of one layer can have an atomic percent of nitrogen from 40% to 55% (most preferably 42% to 50%); and non-stoichiometric composition of the nitride-containing compound of an adjacent layer preferably has an atomic percent of nitrogen from 33% to 45%, more preferably 39% to 42%, provided that the nitrogen content in one layer is at least 2 atomic percent of nitrogen different than the nitrogen content in an adjacent layer. The multilayer coating can be deposited by using conventional process techniques such as chemical vapour deposition and physical vapour deposition such as arc processes, dc and rf magnetron sputtering, reactive ion plating and the like. The changing of the ratio of nitrogen to titanium for the alternate lamellar layers will interrupt the grain growth process of the coating compound so that the grain size of the compound is no larger than the thickness of the individual layers. A layer containing less than 33 atomic percent of nitrogen will be relatively reactive and susceptible to burning during solid particle impact. A layer containing more than 55 atomic percent of nitrogen will generally have a relatively high compressive stress and be prone to lateral spalling. The preferred coating would comprise a layer of titanium nitride having an atomic percent of nitrogen from 40% to 55% alternating with a layer of titanium nitride having an atomic percent of nitrogen from 33% to 45% and wherein at least one layer has at least 2 atomic percent of nitrogen different than the nitrogen content in each adjacent layer on opposite sides of such layer. Titanium nitride with the above ranges of nitrogen can have the same orientation and crystallographic structure with a small difference in lattice spacings so that coherent interfaces between the layers can be expected to produce a high toughness characteristic. Although not wanting to be bound by theory, it is believed that the toughness enhancement in titanium nitride multilayer coatings of this invention can be explained by two different mechanisms. Firstly, at least after every 5 µm (5 microns) thick coated layer, preferably after every 1 µm (1 micron) or less thick coated layer, the nitrogen in the coating composition should be changed to provide for small size crystallites and small columnar grains in each layer. For example, interruption of the crystal growth by varying the nitrogen content of the coating composition after depositing a 1 µm (micron) thick layer of the coating can generally produce crystal size about 0.02 µm (micron) or less while a 20 µm (20 micron) thick single coating will generally produce crystals up to 0.07 µm (0.07 micron) in size. Using fixed deposition conditions, titanium nitride coatings of various thickness were deposited on a substrate and the average grain size of the crystals produced in each coated layer was determined. The data obtained are shown in Table 1. Thickness of Coating µm (microns) Average Grain Size of Crystal µm (microns) 20 0.074 16 0.059 7 0.045 4 0.032 This data clearly demonstrates that the average crystal size in a 20 µm (20 micron) thick single layer coating of TiN will be more than two times larger than the size of the crystals in a 20 µm (20 micron) thick 5-layer coating with each layer being 4 µm (4 microns) thick. The advantages of smaller crystallite sizes in the multilayer coating is that they provide greater toughness as well as hardness to the overall coating. Secondly, layered structure coatings are toughened due to the interference of layer interfaces with crack propagation. In other words, the coherent and partly coherent interface between layers can absorb the impact energy by deflecting the cracks and/or making the propagation path of cracks more tortuous. Hardness and toughness of a multilayer coating are closely related to compositions and spacings of layers. The individual layer thickness and overall thickness of the multilayer coating depends on specific applications. For systems applications requiring high toughness, the layer with the smaller content of nitrogen should be from 1 to 20 times thicker than the layer containing the higher content of nitrogen. An overall coating thickness of from 5 µm (microns) up to 30 µm (microns) thick is generally adequate for most erosion applications. The thickness of the individual layers can vary greatly as for example between 0.1 to 5 µm (microns) thick, preferably about 1 µm (micron) thick. The number of layers should be at least three so that at least one layer will have an atomic percent of nitrogen of 2% more or 2% less than the nitrogen content in the adjacent layer. In accordance with this invention, the number of layers of a nitride-containing compound forming the coating of this invention can vary from three up to any number desired for a particular application. Generally, 5 to 50 layers of the coating would be suitable for most applications employing turbomachines that operate in a dust environment. For most applications, 15 to 40 layers would be preferable. A preferable multilayer coating would be a layer of Ti₂N mixed with titanium nitride having an atomic percent of nitrogen of about 40% alternating with a layer of a titanium-nitride compound having an atomic percent of nitrogen from 40% to 55%. Another preferred coating would be a multilayer consisting of layers of titanium-aluminium nitride compound (e.g. TiAlN x ) having an atomic percent of nitrogen from 33% to 55%, provided that each layer contain at least 2 atomic percent of nitrogen different than the nitrogen contained in an adjacent layer. The aluminium in the titanium aluminium alloy could range from 10 to 60 atomic percent. In some applications, it may be advisable to have a relatively thick first layer of the nitride-containing compound to support subsequent multilayers of the coating and/or a thick top layer to provide a harder top surface. The multilayer coating of this invention is ideally suited for coating substrates made of materials such as for example, titanium, steel, aluminium, nickel, cobalt, alloys thereof and the like. The present invention will now be further described with reference to the following Examples. EXAMPLE 1 Multilayer titanium nitride coatings were deposited on Ti-6A1-4V substrates using a physical vapour deposition arc evaporation process. Before deposition, the vapour deposition chamber was evacuated to a pressure below 7 x 10⁴ Pa and then backfilled with argon to 0.7 Pa. The substrate to be coated was sputtered to remove surface contaminants. Subsequently, a d.c. arc was activated across a titanium cathode and a chamber which acts as an anode to evaporate Ti from the Ti cathode in an Ar-N₂ gas mixture at an overall pressure of 1.3 to 4.8 Pa. The ionized Ti vapour reacted with N₂ ions and then formed titanium nitride coatings on the substrates. The layered structure of the coating was formed by altering the nitrogen N₂ gas flow rates during the deposition. Typically, the coating consisted of a lamellar structure of A and B nitride layers in which the thickness of the B layer was greater than that of the A layer. The nitrogen concentration in the A layer was generally greater than the nitrogen content in the B layer. A number of multilayer coatings with various layer thicknesses of A and B were produced. The nitrogen concentrations in the layers of the coatings were determined by sputtered neutral mass spectrometry. A coating with a known composition was used as a chemistry standard in the analysis. The layer thicknesses of A and B, the N₂ concentration in the layers, and the difference in N₂ concentration between the A and B layers are given in Table 2. The crystallographic orientation, interplanar spacing in (111) and crystallite size of these coatings, given in Table 2, were determined by X-ray diffractometry. The preferred orientation was determined from the texture coefficient of reflections (hkl). Interplanar spacings were calculated according to the Bragg equation, λ=2d sin ; where λ is the wavelength of the X-rays, d the interplanar spacing between atomic planes in the crystal, and ϑ the angle between the atomic plane and both the incident and reflected beams. The crystallite size was determined based on the (111), (200) and (220) lines broadening excluding the instrumental broadening which was determined from an annealed stoichiometric TiN powder. Erosion properties of the multilayer coatings and the single layer TiN x coatings on 1.5 x 25 x 50 mm Ti-6Al-4V samples were determined by impacting with angular alumina particles at 20° and 90° impingement angles. The test apparatus was set up according to the recommended guidelines of the American Society of Testing Materials, ASTM G 76-83. Compressed air with a pressure of 276 kPa was used to carry alumina particles with a nominal particle size of 50 µm (50 microns) through a 5 mm diameter alumina nozzle. The nominal particle velocity was 60 metres per second (ms⁻¹) and the nozzle-to-specimen distance was maintained at 100 mm. In each test, at least 0.6 and 0.2 kg of alumina particles was used for 20° and 90° erosion, respectively. Generally, the erosion rate was measured in terms of the weight loss of the coating per unit gram of the erodent used in the test. The erosion resistance of the coatings is defined as the reciprocal of the ratio of the erosion rate of the measured coatings to the typical single layer stoichiometric TiN coating, (Sample 6). The test results of these coatings are given in Table 3. The preferred orientation of a typical A layer is in <111> and the B layer either in <111> <200> or <220>. The A layer is defined as having relatively higher N₂ concentration than the B layer. Apparently, the preferred orientation of the coating depends strongly on the chemical composition of the coating. Therefore, various preferred orientations in <111>, or a combination of <111> and <200> have a relatively higher overall N₂ concentration than that with a <200> or <220> preferred orientation. During deposition, interdiffusion occurred between the A and B layers due to thermal heating, resulting in a small difference in nitrogen concentration from 2.6 to 5.4 atomic percent which depends primarily on the thickness of the layers. As a result of the formation of a layered structure, the values of interplanar spacing d₁₁₁ of the multilayer coatings, Samples 1 to 5 are between that of the single A layer coating (Sample 6) and the single B layer coating (Sample 7). Considering an anisotropic growth of crystallites, the crystallite size of the multilayer coating is significantly smaller than that of the single layer coating. The multilayer coatings with a preferred orientation in <111> and in combination of <111> and <200> have substantially smaller crystallites compared with the single layer coating. In the coatings with a preferred orientation in <200> and <220>, the multilayer coating exhibited finer crystallite size than the crystallite size in the single layer coating, e.g. compare Samples 3, 4 and 5 with Sample 7. Both Samples 2 and 3 had <111> and <200> preferred orientation, a 2.8 and 2.6 atomic percent of nitrogen concentration difference between adjacent layers, respectively. Both coatings showed substantial erosion performance improvement over the single layer titanium nitride coatings Samples 6 and 7 at both 20° and 90° impingement angles. Sample 1 coating had a B/A layer thickness ratio of 3.9 and preferred orientation in both <111> and <200>. The nitrogen concentration difference between adjacent layers in the coating was 5.4 atomic percent. The erosion resistances of the Sample 1 coating were 1.1 and 8 times that of a single layer TiN coating (Sample 6) at 20° and 90° impingement angles, respectively. Compared with a single layer substoichiometric TiN x coating. (Sample 7), the Sample 1 coating showed little or no improvement at 90° and 20° impingement angles, respectively. However, the Sample 1 coating showed at least 3 times improvement in furrowing resistance over the Sample 6 and 7 coatings as observed by the dimensions of furrows formed from the 50 µm (50 micron) erosion at 10° impingement angles. The dimensions of the furrows were measured in a longitudinal direction (parallel to the particle flow direction) and in the transverse direction. The furrow dimensions observed for Samples 1, 6 and 7 are shown in Table 4 . The Sample 5 coating had a B/A layer thickness ratio of 9.1 and a <200> preferred orientation. The nitrogen concentration difference between adjacent layers in this coating was 2.8 atomic percent. The erosion performance of this coating was substantially better than that of the Sample 6 TiN coating at both 20° and 90° impingement angles. However, compared with the substoichiometric TiN x coating, (Sample 7), the improvement in erosion resistance of the Sample 5 coating was only found at 20° impingement angle. Sample Coating Furrow Dimension Longitudinal x Transversal direction (nm) 1 0.17 x 0.02 6 0.37 x 0.06 7 0.31 x 0.04

Claims: A multilayer coated article comprising a substrate coated with at least three layers of a nitride-containing compound wherein the composition of each layer is a nonstoichiometric composition which contains at least 2 atomic percent of nitrogen different than the nitrogen contained in an adjacent layer. A multilayer coated article according to Claim 1, wherein the nonstoichiometric composition of the nitride-containing compound of each layer has an atomic percent of nitrogen from 33% to 55% and the nitrogen content in one layer has at least 2 atomic percent of nitrogen different than the nitrogen content in an adjacent layer. A multilayer coated article according to Claim 2, wherein the nonstoichiometric composition of the nitride-containing compound of one layer has an atomic percent of nitrogen from 33% to 45% and nonstoichiometric composition of the nitride-containing compound of an adjacent layer has an atomic percent of nitrogen from 40% to 55% A multilayer coated article according to any of Claims 1 to 3, wherein the multilayer coating comprises 3 to 50 layers. A multilayer coated article according to any of claims 1 to 4, wherein the multilayer coating comprises from 15 to 40 layers. A multilayer coated article according to any of claims 1 to 5, wherein the overall thickness of the coating is from 5 to 30 µm (5 to 30 microns). A multilayer coated article according to any of claims 1 to 6, wherein the thickness of each layer is from 0.1 to 5 µm (0.1 to 5 microns) thick. A multilayer coated article according to any of claims 1 to 7, wherein the ratio of the thickness of the layer containing the least amount of nitrogen to the thickness of an adjacent layer containing the higher amount of nitrogen is from 1 to 20. A multilayer coated article according to any of claims 1 to 8, wherein the substrate is selected from titanium, steel, aluminium, nickel, cobalt and alloys thereof. A multilayer coated article according to any of Claims 1 to 9, wherein at least one layer contains at least one additive selected from titanium, titanium alloys, zirconium and zirconium alloys. A multilayer coated article according to any of claims 1 to 10, wherein the nitride-containing compound is titanium nitride. A multilayer coated article according to Claim 10, wherein at least one layer contains at least one element selected from aluminium, vanadium, molybdenum, niobium, iron, chromium and manganese. A multilayer coated article according to claim 12, wherein the nitride-containing compound is titanium aluminium nitride. A multilayer coated article according to claim 1, wherein the nitride-containing compound of one layer is Ti₂N mixed with titanium nitride having an atomic percent of nitrogen of about 40%; the nitride-containing compound of an adjacent layer is nonstoichiometric titanium nitride having an atomic percent of nitrogen of 40% to 55%; and the nitrogen content of one layer has at least 2 atomic percent of nitrogen different than the nitrogen content in an adjacent layer. A method for producing a multilayer nitride-containing coating on a substrate which comprises: (a) placing a substrate to be coated in a chamber containing a target and a nitrogen-containing gas mixture; (b) evaporating the target to produce a vapour to react with the nitrogen in the nitrogen-containing gas mixture to form a nonstoichiometric nitride-containing layer of a desired nitrogen content on the substrate; (c) changing the nitrogen content of the nitrogen-containing gas mixture and repeating step (b) to form another nonstoichiometric nitride-containing layer on the coated substrate that has a nitrogen content of at least 2 atomic percent of nitrogen different than the nitrogen contained in the previously deposited layer; and (d) repeating step (c) at least twice to form a multilayer coating of at least three nonstoichiometric nitride-containing layers in which at least one layer contains at least 2 atomic percent of nitrogen different than the nitrogen contained in an adjacent nonstoichiometric nitride-containing layer. A method according to claim 15, wherein the target is made of titanium. A method according to claim 15 or 16, wherein the nitrogen-containing gas mixture is selected from argon-nitrogen; krypton-nitrogen; helium-nitrogen; xenon-nitrogen; and neon-nitrogen. A method according to claim 17, wherein the nitrogen-containing gas mixture is argon-nitrogen. A method according to any of claims 15 to 18, wherein the substrate is selected from titanium, steel, aluminium, nickel, cobalt and alloys thereof. A method according to any of claims 15 to 19, wherein step (d) is repeated until a multilayer coating is produced having from 3 to 50 layers. A method according to any of claims 15 to 20, wherein the thickness of the multilayer coating is from 5 to 30 µm (5 to 30 microns). A method according to any of claims 15 to 21, wherein the first deposited layer in step (b) has a greater nitrogen content than the second deposited layer in step (c).

Inventors: HARDEN HENRY TROUE, JIINJEN ALBERT SUE, HARDEN, HENRY TROUE, JIINJEN, ALBERT SUE
Applicants: PRAXAIR TECHNOLOGY INC, PRAXAIR S.T. TECHNOLOGY, INC.
Application year: 1990
Main classification: C23C14
IPC codes: C23C28, C23C14, C23C30