PROCESS AND ADVANTAGE OF MULTICOMPONENT AND MULTILAYER PVD COATINGS

This paper gives a short review of physical vapour deposition (PVD) processes suitable for the deposition of wear-protective films with complex compositions and structures. It then characterizes the advantages of multicomponent and multilayer coatings, and describes their behaviour in cutting tool applications- an area in which PVD coatings are widely used in industry. The research results presented indicate a great future application potential for PVD coatings with complex compositions and structures. Particularly promising in this respect are films which achieve significantly prolonged tool lives in interrupted-cut machining, such as Ti-Zr-N, Ti-C-N and TiN/Ti-C-N multilayer coatings.