## 1 Introduction  
To keep up with economic, technological, and environmental concerns, modern equipment must be constructed with ever-increasing performance requirements, frequently pushing components to their utmost limits [1]. Tribological deficiencies, such as lubrication breakdown, excessive wear, and tribo-corrosion, can be greatly exacerbated by the growing need for performance [2]. This can result in unnecessary operational costs, decreased efficiency, and premature failure [3, 4]. Because tribological processes arise from the interaction of two or more bodies in relative motion in a given environment, surface engineering can be employed to provide surfaces with the high performance they need for challenging operational situations [5, 6]. Physical vapor deposition (PVD) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technologies have allowed for novel approaches to the production of tribological coatings [7, 8, 9, 10]. Evaporation is at the core of PVD processes; there are a variety of ways to evaporate the source material. Hard, dense, and thick protective coatings are often deposited using the cathodic-arc deposition (CAD) process, in which the target material (cathode) is vaporized using an electric arc. The necessity to create dense and adherent ceramic coatings at moderate substrate temperatures (200-600 \({}^{\circ}\)C) motivated the development of PVD technology. The PVD coatings made of transition metal nitrides and carbon nitrides, such as TiN, CrN, TiCrN, and TiCN, are on the upswing because of their excellent resistance to corrosion and wear [11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16]. Hard coatings have been frequently used to protect the working surfaces of tools, extending their service life, improving their efficiency, and boosting their productivity. By altering material properties like hardness, toughness, corrosion resistance, and residual coating stresses, structural parameters like density, crystallinity, and grain size have a significant impact on performance in protective coatings for tribological applications [17; 18; 19]. It is reported that the coating properties of CrN and M-CrN are directly affected by the hardness of the substrate [20; 21]. The incorporation of chromium in the cubic (face centered cubic) TiN structure leads to enhanced thermal stability of the coating [22]. Cr atoms are in crystalline lattice sites substituting Ti atoms to form a solid solution. The Cr content in the TiCrN films influences the microstructure, hardness, and oxidation resistance [22; 23; 24; 25]. Coatings of the type (TiCr)N are candidates for the wear protection of tools and machinery parts [26; 27; 28; 29; 30]. While the difference in thermal expansion coefficient between the coating and the substrate contributes significantly to the overall residual stress, it has been established that the residual stress in coating systems is also associated to microstructure [31]. Despite the plethora of data available on structure and hardness of TiCrN coatings, relatively few studies have investigated their wear properties. The CAD of TiN thin films has not been the subject of as many investigations as other deposition methods; hence, it is difficult to fully assess the impact of Cr addition on the film's characteristics. For tribological and structural applications, the mechanical properties, wear resistance and residual stress of cathodic-arc PVD (CAPVD)-assisted TiCrN hard thin films have not been studied extensively. Coating parameters like substrate bias, deposition temperature, and cathode currents, etc., can be further optimized for better tribological properties. In depth quantitative and qualitative analysis of toughness for thin coatings can be conducted. Critical thickness of the coating developed can be optimized in the case of thick coatings for improved wear resistance. Specific methods can be adapted to calculate volume loss of the coated substrate during wear tests.