Preparation and Microstructure Characterization of MoS2 Added TiAlN/CrN Multilayered Nanocrystalline Thin Films
D. BIRO, P.B. BARNA, T. HATTORI, A. DEVENYI, L.F. JAKAB, S. PAPP

Abstract.
Nanocrystalline thin film coatings of MoS2-added CrN/TiAlN multilayers were prepared by reactive d.c. co-sputtering of Ti/Al 50/50 at.%, pure chromium and MoS2 targets, used as sputter sources of the unbalanced magnetrons. Structure characterization of the as-deposited coatings was performed by cross sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analyses. The self-lubricated MoS2 doped multilayered TiAlN/CrN films with a periodic thickness of 6 nm had smaller crystallite size than the homogeneous Cr and CrN films. The crystallinity of the CrN and TiAlN layers in the nano-scale multilayered system decreases with increasing thickness of the MoS2 layer. It has been found that the structural properties and hardness of the films were correlated with the multiple target design and MoS2 nanolayer thickness.