Advanced coating architectures deposited by pulsed and filtered arc ion-plating

Wear resistant coating systems for cutting tools were designed by using an ion-plating technique on the base of filtered arc evaporation combined with pulsed plasma surface treatment. The deposition of the hard coatings under pulsed ion bombardment of a macroparticle free plasma stream resulted in an improved microstructure of the multilayered coating systems in comparison with conventional arc deposited coatings. The coating architecture of these multilayered systems, designed according to the principle of stacked functional layers, was optimized under the aspect of increasing the life-time of the coated cutting tools. Both laboratory and industrial tests were performed with HSS- and carbide cutting tools for several applications. The characteristic features of microstructure investigated by electron microscopy methods will be discussed. Further prospects for various applications of the mentioned coating technology and corresponding coating architectures are also presented in this paper.