Increase of hardness and oxidation resistance of VN coating by nanoscale multilayered structurization with AlN

AlN/VN nanoscale multilayered coatings with various bilayer periods from 2.1 nm to 10.0 nm have been prepared by alternating deposition of AlN and VN. The maximum hardness, 45.4 GPa, was obtained for the AlN/VN nanoscale multilayered coating with bilayer period of 2.1 nm, which is an increase of 54% over the rule of mixture hardness value (29.5 GPa) of AlN and VN coatings. The mass gain of heat-treated AlN/VN nanoscale multilayered coating at temperatures from 600 °C to 700 °C in air was measured to be less than that of the VN single layered coating, which indicates that the oxidation resistance as well as hardness of the VN coating can be increased by nanoscale multilayered structurization with AlN.