Deposition of a Multilayer Coating in a Gas-Metal Beam-Plasma Formation at Low Pressure

The vacuum-arc plasma-assisted method is used to deposit a multilayer coating based on Ti and Al in two discharge systems – in a traditional plasma-assisted vacuum-arc spraying system and in a gas-metal beam-plasma generation system in a hollow cathode of a non-self-sustained low pressure glow discharge. The coatings synthesized in these discharge schemes have close elemental and phase compositions. The aluminum content in the coating deposited in the plasma-beam formation is 8% lower, which is probably due to a higher overall average value of the ion flux density on the surface of the growing film in a non-self-sustained glow discharge. In the coating deposited by sputtering in a beam-plasma formation, no elements are part of the material of the sputtered hollow cathode. The gas-metal beam-plasma formations generated at low pressure are promising in the processes of functional coating deposition by the vacuum-arc plasma-assisted method.