Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 February 2011
Thin ceramic coatings have been used in tribological applications for some time because their high defect densities and small grain size leads to a very hard, wear-resistant surface. However it is not sufficient to look at properties such as hardness in isolation when considering the selection of a coating for a given engineering application as other properties such as residual stress or adhesion may be equally important. In fact it is central to the continued development of advanced coating technologies to understand the inter-relationship between the important properties of the coating/substrate system (residual stress, hardness, adhesion etc.) and coating microstructure particularly as this can be controlled to a certain extent by the choice of deposition technology and processing parameters. By using PVD titanium nitride as an example, this paper reviews the potential for microstructural control using current physical vapour deposition (PVD) processes and shows how the microstructure of the coating is important in dictating its mechanical properties. These properties and others which still need to be measured are discussed and the potential for designing with coatings assessed in the light of current understanding.