Local heteroepitaxy as an adhesion mechanism in aluminium coatings cold gas sprayed on AlN substrates

Abstract Cold gas sprayed Al coatings deposited onto wurtzitic AlN substrates show excellent adhesion. As a possible adhesion mechanism, the local heteroepitaxy between Al and AlN was considered and verified experimentally in Al coatings, which were deposited using magnetron sputtering or cold gas spraying on single-crystalline and polycrystalline AlN substrates. Analysis of the local orientation relationships at the Al/AlN interfaces revealed that preferentially such lattice planes of Al align parallel with the upright lattice planes of AlN, which possess similar interplanar distances. The matching lattice planes in the Al coatings grew as continuations of the lattice planes in the AlN substrates. In all samples under study, the parallel alignment of the lattice planes {220} Al and {110} AlN was found. Additional orientation relationships between Al and AlN arose if parallel lattice planes with similar interplanar spacing could be found in both counterparts via rotation of the lattice planes {220} Al around their normal direction. Still, the oriented growth of Al on AlN is only possible if Al atoms in the deposited coatings are mobile enough to rearrange along the AlN surface. Whereas the mobility of Al atoms in a magnetron sputtering process is expected to be sufficiently high, the intrinsic mobility of Al atoms in the cold gas sprayed particles is anticipated to be low. However, the auxiliary microstructure analyses have shown that local recrystallization and partial melting are two phenomena, which can facilitate the rearrangement of Al atoms within the cold gas sprayed coating.