Mechanical properties of Ti-containing and W-containing diamond-like carbon coatings

Ti-containing and W-containing diamond-like hydrocarbon coatings have been synthesized by glow discharge reactive magnetron sputter deposition in an Ar/CH4 mixture. it is shown that these metal-containing hydrocarbon coatings consist of nanocrystalline TiC and WC embedded in an amorphous hydrocarbon matrix and are thin-film nanocomposite materials. The elastic modulus and hardness of these nanocomposites exhibit systematic dependence on their composition, while the ratio of hardness to modulus remains approximately a constant. It is also shown that the elastic modulus and hardness of these nanocomposites are within macromechanical bounds for two-phase composite materials. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(98)04420-X].