Investigating DLC coating quality according to variations in bias values for 4 different materials having different alloying elements

Diamond like carbon (DLC) thin films are known by having good mechanical, tribological, thermal and corrosive properties for practical applications. Because of these encouraging features, we investigated the capability and the quality of DLC thin film coating to metals with different alloying ratios. DLC coating was applied by using PE-CVD process with two different 'bias' parameters on four different materials, which are X40CrMoV5-1, 16MnCr5, 304 stainless steel and K40XF hard metal. The microscope view, coating thickness, adhesion test and micro hardness were investigated, which are commonly mentioned in literature. In order to understand the effects of metals with different alloy ratios and the 'bias' parameter change on DLC coating quality. As a summary of these investigations, no difference was observed between metals with different alloy ratios results. Therefore, we can say that, metals with different alloy ratios could be DLC coated by PE-CVD process. Moreover, when the effect of the 'bias' parameter on the results was examined, the increase of the 'bias' parameter from -200V to -250V, provided increased ionization in the chamber and as a result, it made the DLC coating harder and thicker.