The optical-mechanical properties of alloyed carbon coatings

Abstract

Collisional activation spectroscopy is a rather elementary, quick, and non-destructive method of defining the properties of carbon coatings. The collisional activation spectra contain the information about quantitative content of sp3 and sp2 bonds. Macroscopic properties of metal alloyed carbon coatings (e.g. hardness, wear resistance, friction factor, and refractive index) are in close ties with the parameters received from the corresponding collisional activation spectra. It has been stated that for Cu-C coatings the intensity ratio of G- and D-peaks is defined by the changes in Cu concentration in a coating. The concentration of diamond sp3 phase considerably decreases while increasing the concentration of copper, which during the synthesis process of an alloyed carbon coating works as a catalyst advantaging graphitization of a growing coating. This fact is proved by low values of friction factor and low wear resistance of the coating if copper concentration is increased with more than 3 %.