The Use of Ion Bombardment Modeling as a Component of the Structural Engineering of Nanoperiodic Composite Structures

The influence of bias potential on the phase-structural state and hardness of nanolayer multi-period vacuum-arc coatings has been studied using modeling radiation damage during ion bombardment, phase-structural studies, and measurement of microhardness. A significant expansion of the defect formation area was revealed when using layers of multi-element (high-entropy) alloys. For the composition (TiZrAlVNbCr), the depth of defect formation reaches 30% of the total layer thickness (around 14 nm). It was found that for monometallic layers of the TiN/MoN system, the use of a constant potential of −230 V leads to the formation of the phase composition of TiN and γ-Mo2N. The hardness of such a coating is 44 GPa. The use of a high-voltage potential (−1000 V) in a pulsed form allows the formation of TiN and an equilibrium MoN phase, reduces the micro deformation of crystallites, and increases the hardness to 47 GPa. The introduction of layers of high-entropy (TiZrAlVNbCr) alloy nitride into the nanocomposite instead of TiN layers, and thus obtaining a composite (TiZrAlVNbCr)N/MoN, even in a high-voltage pulse mode, leads to stabilization of the nonequilibrium (γ-Mo2N) phase in molybdenum nitride layers. However, the feature of high-entropy alloys associated with low diffusion mobility and high distortion of the crystal lattice makes it possible to achieve the highest hardness of 54 GPa in such a nanocomposite.