CD Laboratory for Advanced Hard Coatings

Research activities focus on the development and characterisation of new types of hard coatings that extend the service life of tools and slow down wear processes.

At present, the stress on protective coatings on tools is becoming more and more massive. New methods such as high-performance machining are increasingly being used to process tough and high-strength materials.

In industrial production, conventional materials quickly reach their limits at temperatures of up to 1,000 degrees Celsius. Today, the coatings, which are only a few thousandths of a millimetre thick, usually consist of nitrides of transition metals, mainly titanium nitride or chromium nitride. These materials are deposited from the vapour phase using physical processes such as sputtering, a high-vacuum-based coating technique.

In a first step of the research activities, such existing coating systems are optimised through targeted mechanisms to increase the hardness and toughness of the materials. A central aspect of this is layer analysis and the development of advanced analytical methods for characterising such surface layers. Materials are analysed for the desired properties under the various conditions of use. These include high hardness and toughness, low friction, good oxidation resistance and their interaction with the layer structure. The knowledge gained forms the basis for the further development of such hard coatings.

Completely new materials are being developed as part of the research work to create new types of layer systems. These are produced in a vacuum using plasma-assisted processes and applied to the surface of the material in individual atomic layers. Design rules are created in order to be able to define the targeted adjustment of the micro- and nanostructure of the layers and the exact structure and structuring of the layer on the mould surface.

The investigations make it possible to create a seamless chain of understanding between the composition and structure of the coating material, the associated coating properties and the application behaviour. In this way, the aim of the research activities will be to develop hard coatings that harden automatically and heal damage, such as cracks, by themselves. These coatings will have a lubricating effect, exhibit very low friction and also withstand very high application temperatures.