Effect of rapid thermal annealing on microstructure, mechanical and tribological properties of amorphous SiC hard coatings

Herein, a-SiC hard coatings were prepared by pulsed DC magnetron sputtering followed by rapid thermal annealing (RTA) at various temperatures. The influence of the RTA temperature on the coatings' microstructure, mechanical and tribological properties was investigated. The results show that the surface morphology of a-SiC coatings almost unchanged and remains amorphous within 973 K annealing temperature. The content of sp3 first increases and then decreases with increasing annealing temperature, and reaches the maximum value at 773 K. The hardness (H) and elastic modulus (E) of the a-SiC coatings also increase firstly and then decrease due to the variation of sp3 content, while average friction coefficient decreases first and then increases. As the annealing temperature is 823 K, the maximal H, E of 25.02 GPa, 243.63 GPa are obtained. At 773 K annealing temperature, the minimum friction coefficient of 0.107 is realized, a-SiC coating exhibits higher H/E, H3/E2 and tribological properties.