Deposition of ultrahard Ti–Si–N coatings by pulsed high-current reactive magnetron sputtering

We report on the results of investigation of properties of ultrahard Ti–Si–N coatings deposited by pulsed high-current magnetron reactive sputtering (discharge pulse voltage is 300–900 V, discharge pulse current is up to 200 A, pulse duration is 10–100 $\mu$s, and pulse repetition rate is 20–2000 Hz). It is shown that for a short sputtering pulse (25 $\mu$s) and a high discharge current (160 A), the films exhibit high hardness (66 GPa), wear resistance, better adhesion, and a lower sliding friction coefficient. The reason is an enhancement of ion bombardment of the growing coating due to higher plasma density in the substrate region (10$^{13}$ cm$^{-3}$) and a manifold increase in the degree of ionization of the plasma with increasing peak discharge current (mainly due to the material being sputtered).