Characterization of boron nitride coatings

In this study, boron nitride (BN) is coated by physical vapor deposition - magnetron sputtering techniques. Coatings are applied on substrates by using the single crystal grown hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) target plate. D2 steel is used for the characterizations as a substrate material. During this study the effects of the BN coating by using various coating parameters are investigated. The thickness of the resulting coatings, nanohardness, friction coefficient, wear resistance are experimentally measured for mechanical properties. In addition, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy for crystal structure analysis (FTIR) technique is used to identify the crystal structure of BN films. As a result of coating with different parameters, various different BN allotropes apart from h-BN are obtained. These allotropes are c-BN, w-BN, r-BN, t-BN, e-BN, and a-BN. Correlations between coating parameters and coating properties are discussed. (author)