The effectivness of applied power on structure and tribomechanical properties of Ti-Zr-N films, deposited on AISI304 stainless steel substrate, by pulsed magnetron sputtering PMS technique was investigated. The composition and Ti-Zr-N films properties were varied as the applied power changing from 125 W up to 225 W at a fixed deposition time of 90 min and constant nitrogen / argon gas ratio of 20%. XRD analysis reveals that, formation of FCC structure Ti-Zr-N as a solid solution phase and TiN

more »

... a chemical compound phase. The dominant phase Ti-Zr-N shows a preferred orientation in (111) orientation. It was obtained that all Ti-Zr-N coatings have a nanostructured appearance. The microhardness of the thin films is increased up to 1000 HV0.025 which approximately represents 4-folds as that of AISI304 stainless steel substrate. Furthermore, the rate of wear has been improved from 66.64 mm 3 /Nm for AISI 304 substrate to 15.75 mm 3 /Nm after depositing Ti-Zr-N. Over and above, the coefficient of friction (C.O.F) is decreased from nearly 0.69 for the austenitic substrate to nearly 0.16 after coating. Finally, the corrosion performance of Ti-Zr-N films is improved about 1000 times as that of AISI304 substrate.