• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
• /
• v.49 no.5
• /
• pp.461-466
• /
• 2016

Nanocrystalline vanadium nitride (VN) coatings were deposited using asymmetric bipolar pulsed dc sputtering to further understand the influence of the pulsed plasmas on the crystal structure, microstructure and mechanical properties. Properties of VN coatings were investigated with FE-SEM, XRD and nanoindentation. The results show that, with the increasing pulse frequency and decreasing duty cycle, the coating morphology changed from a porous columnar to a dense structure, with finer grains. Asymmetric bipolar pulsed dc sputtered VN coatings showed higher hardness, elastic modulus and residual compressive stress than dc sputtered VN coatings. The results suggest that asymmetric bipolar pulsed dc sputtering technique is very beneficial for the reactive sputtering deposition of VN coatings.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
• /
• v.54 no.1
• /
• pp.38-42
• /
• 2017

Vanadium nitride (VN) coatings were deposited using inductively coupled plasma (ICP) assisted sputtering at different ICP powers. Microstructural, crystallographic and mechanical characterizations were performed by FE-SEM, AFM, XRD and nanoindentation. The results show that ICP has significant effects on coating's microstructure, structural and mechanical properties of VN coatings. With an increase in ICP power, coating microstructure evolved from a porous columnar structure to a highly dense one. Single- phase cubic (FCC) VN coatings with different preferential orientations and residual stresses were obtained as a function of ICP power. Average crystal grain sizes of single phase cubic (FCC) VN coatings were decreased from 10.1 nm to 4.0 nm with an increase in ICP power. The maximum hardness of 28.2 GPa was obtained for the coatings deposited at ICP power of 200 W. The smoothest surface morphology with Ra roughness of 1.7 nm was obtained in the VN coating sputtered at ICP power of 200 W.

• Journal of Surface Science and Engineering
• /
• v.49 no.4
• /
• pp.376-381
• /
• 2016

The effects of ICP (Inductively Coupled Plasma) power, ranging from 0 to 200 W, on the crystal structure, microstructure, surface roughness and mechanical properties of magnetron sputtered VN coatings were systematically investigated with FE-SEM, AFM, XRD and nanoindentation. The results show that ICP power has a significant influence on coating microstructure and mechanical properties of VN coatings. With the increasing of ICP power, coating microstructure evolves from a porous columnar structure to a highly dense one. Average crystal grain size of single phase cubic fcc VN coatings was decreased from 10.1 nm to 4.0 nm with increase of ICP power. The maximum hardness of 28.2 GPa was obtained for the coatings deposited at ICP power of 200 W. The smoothest surface morphology with Ra roughness of 1.7 nm was obtained from the VN coating sputtered at ICP power of 200 W.

• Resources Recycling
• /
• v.31 no.1
• /
• pp.46-55
• /
• 2022

The recycling of coated cemented carbide scraps is becoming increasingly significant for the recovery of rare metals. However, coatings consisting of Group IV and V transition metal nitrides are one of the challenging factors in obtaining high-purity materials. We investigated the structural, elastic, and mechanical properties of Group IV and V transition-metal nitrides (TiN, VN, ZrN, NbN, HfN, and TaN) using first-principle calculations. Convergence tests were performed to obtain reliable calculated results. The equilibrium structures of the nitrides were in good agreement with those of a previous study, indicating the reliability of the data. Group IV transition metal nitrides show a higher covalent bonding nature. Thus, they exhibit a higher degree of brittleness than that of Group V transition metal nitrides. In contrast, Group V transition metal nitrides show weaker resistance to shear loading and more ductile behavior than Group IV transition metal nitrides because of the metallic bonds characterized by valence electron concentration. The results of the crystal orbital Hamilton population analysis showed good agreement with the shear resistance tendencies of all transition metal nitrides.