Estudio De Caracter´ isticas Voltio-Amp´ ericas Y Peculiaridades De Funcionamiento De Un Vaporizador De Arco En Vac´ Study Of Volt-Ampere Carachteristics And Functioning Peculiarities Of A Vacuum Arc Sprayer

A tope type arc sprayer with titanium cathode for a technology of metal protection films is studied. It is shown that despite the fact that the sprayer is fed by d.c. voltage, the arc discharge works in a regime with short current pulses which appear due to the heated spot groups formed on the cathode surface. The titanium deposition rate of 2-10 nm/s depends on the arc current value. The TiN films on the SAE 1020 steel samples are deposited in medium of the nitrogen gas. It is found that the film hardness value depends on the gas pressure. The maximum hardness is observed for the TiN films which are produced at a nitrogen pressure of 0.8 Pa.