Hard and tough CrN coatings strengthened by high-density distorted coherent grain boundaries

Abstract Coherent grain boundaries (CGBs) has been revealed to improve the hardness and toughness simultaneously, but the density are not enough to increase their mechanical properties. Herein, hetero-interfaces are formed by introducing ion bombardment during magnetron sputtering to increase the amount of CGBs in the CrN coatings. By optimizing the sub-layer thickness, the quantity and width of CGBs from the (111) to (200) orientations increase significantly and consequently, the hardness and toughness of the CrN coating increase to 33.4 GPa and 14.98 MPa·m1/2, respectively. At last, the effect of the different CGBs to the coating strengthen is discussed.