Temperature effect on the formation of a relief of diamond-like carbon coatings and its modification by ion bombardment

Diamond-like coatings (DLCs) have been obtained on a UVNIIPA-001 unit employing the method of pulse arc sputtering of a graphite target. DLCs of about 1.5 μm thick were applied onto substrates of the R6M5 steel. The relief of the coatings that were deposited using different temperature regimes has been studied. It has been established that a temperature rise of the surface of a growing DLC (condensation at a high frequency of arc pulses f) leads to the growth of films with numerous protrusions on their surface. The deposition of films at a low frequency f is more preferable to form smooth and hard DLCs under the conditions of unfiltered beam of carbon ions. The modification of the surface of diamond-like carbon coatings after their application has been investigated upon bombardment with accelerated ions of inert gas (argon) or chemically active oxygen. It has been established that the argon-ion bombardment is more preferable to smooth out the DLC relief. It has been shown that the relief of DLCs must be taken into account when measuring their microhardness, whereas the transformation of interatomic bonds in the near-surface layers after ion irradiation should be taken into consideration when analyzing the coatings by the methods whose informative depth is several monolayers.