Nanocomposite Structure and Tribological and Micromechanical Behavior of Chromocarbon Diamond-Like Coatings

Abstract

An electron microscopic study of the damage to the surface of nanocomposite diamond-like carbon coatings alloyed with chromium, which occurs during testing using the scratch test method with a constantly increasing load, revealed that the features of their structural-phase state affect the morphology of the observed damage. Moreover, depending on the magnitude of the normal load acting on the moving diamond indenter, the picture of characteristic damage to surfaces with coatings changes significantly. It is shown that the behavior of the magnitude of the “threshold” (critical) loads that cause the occurrence of specific types of damage and their tribological properties under dry friction are of the same type for chromium-doped diamond-like carbon coatings, which differ in the features of the nanocomposite structure.