Microstructural influence of the thermal behavior of arc deposited TiAlN coatings with high aluminum content

The influence of the microstructure on the thermal behavior of cathodic arc deposited TiAlN coatings was studied as a function of isothermal annealing. Two compositionally similar but structurally different coatings were compared, a Ti0·34Al0·66N0.96 coating with a fine-grain structure consisting of a mixture of cubic (c) and hexagonal (h) phases, and a Ti0·40Al0·60N0.94 coating with a coarse-grain structure of cubic phase. By in situ wide-angle...