Titanium Nitride (TiN) has been found to be an excellent coating for wear resistant applications. However, the deposition temperature of about 450¿C is far too high for many applications of machine component parts made from alloy steels or aluminum alloys, where deposition temperatures over 150¿C would deleteriously affect the mechanical properties of these substrates. When TiN coatings are deposited at such a low temperature, using current conventional industrial technologies, the microstructure is not dense and the resulting coatings have mechanical properties far inferior to those made at the higher temperatures. Phase I demonstrated that hard, welladhering TiN with low residual stress and a dense micro-structure can indeed be made at 150¿C (by reactive deposition from a cathodic arc evaporation source), using the Hyper-Ion process developed by ISM Technologies. In the hyper-ion process, a pulsed high voltage bias is applied to the work-piece which produces a marked improvement in properties. In Phase II, the deposition process will be further developed and refined to produce a well-defined coating process, which can be scaled up into production and is aimed at providing optimized wear resistance industrial parts. Anticipated Results / Potential Commercial Applications as described by the awardee:This Phase II project should demonstrate that titanium nitride hard coatings deposited at 150¿C by a hyper-ion process are capable of significantly reducing the wear of automotive and other components for which deposition at higher temperatures is not suitable. Potential commercial applications should include piston rings, valve stems, pistons, fuel injector plungers, and injection molds.
