High-Temperature Hardness of Multilayer Vacuum-Arc Metal–Metal Nitride Coatings

We determined the effect of temperature on the hardness of thick (up to 100 µm) multilayer metal–metal nitride coatings. The nature of the change in hardness from temperature is individual for each of the tested multilayer coatings. The hardness of composite multilayer coatings largely depends on the ratio of components in the coating. For a multilayer metal–metal nitride composite coating based on molybdenum, the most refractory metal, with a component ratio of ~60 : 40, the hardness reaches 22 GPa at room temperature and a load of 1 kg, and at 900°C, it reaches 5.0 GPa.