• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.56 no.5
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• pp.328-334
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• 2023

The carbon-based films have various properties, which have been widely applied in industrial application. However, it has critical drawback for poor adhesion between films and metal substrate. In the present work, we have deposited carbon-based films on injection mold steel by plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition (PACVD). In order to improve adhesion, prior to film deposition, the substrate was nitriding-treated using PACVD. And its effect on the adhesion was investigated. Due to the pre-nitriding, the amorphous carbon nitride (a-CN:H) films presented 10 times higher adhesion (34.9 N) than that of un-nitirided. In addition, a friction coefficient was decreased from 0.29 to 0.15 for the amorphous carbon (a-C:H) due to improved adhesion. The obtained results demonstrated that pre-nitriding considerably improved the adhesion, and the relationship among adhesion, hardness, and surface roughness was discussed in detail.