STTR Phase I: Nanocomposite Films by Cylindrical Magnetron Sputtering

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This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I project will develop nano-composite thin film materials and deposition methods for wear resistant coating applications. Nano-composites have been reported with hardnesses exceeding that of diamond and are expected to be easier to produce than superlattices and other recent generations of tribological coatings. The hardness and thermal stability of systems such asmolybdenum/titanium nitride will be modeled. We will use reactive co-sputtering to synthesize these composites and their physical properties will be compared to calculated values. Cylindrical magnetron sputtering has been chosen for this work because of the ease of assembling targets with various material compositions and because of the advantages cylindrical magnetron sputtering offers for depositing onto the complex shapes that often require wear resistand coatings. Wear resistant coatings are widely used on cutting and forming tools as well as in biomedical, aerospace, automotive and other applications. The value of coatings on cutting tools presently exceeds $1billion annually and other uses are expected to reach $3 billion to $5 billion annually within a few years. Customers have readily adopted several new generations of materials and that trend suggests that nano-composites could capture a significant share of the market quickly.