Plasma Treatments for Metallic Surface Modification to Obtain Highly Adherent Diamond-Like Carbon Coatings

The obtained results of the deposition of hard and adherent diamond-like carbon (DLC) films on four metal substrates, stainless steels AISI 304 and ASTM F138, carbon steel AISI 1020, and Ti6Al4V alloy, are presented. The DLC films were deposited using a modified pulsed-dc plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition technique. With the aim to improve the film adhesion, surface modification like nitriding, carbonitriding, and carburizing were used previously to DLC film depositions. Strong DLC films' stress dependence of the plasma treatments was observed. The stress reduction suggests an increase in the DLC films adherence to metallic substrate. Tribological tests also confirmed these results.