Sound technical content, curated with aloha by
Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Pine Beach, NJ
The authoritative public forum
for Metal Finishing since 1989
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PVD Chromium Nitride
Q. I use the cathodic arc to do CrN, but only get a dark blue color deposit, not the silver color.
Please advice the reactive parameter or condition to have the CrN in silver color?
Plating Shop - Hong Kong
2005
A. I've never gotten dark blue, so you must have something really wrong if you are getting dark blue. My guess is that you have a really bad vacuum, a lot of water in the chamber, so you're winding up with an oxy-nitride coating. There is a demand for dark blue coatings, by the way.
Jim Treglio - scwineryreview.com
PVD Consultant & Wine Lover
San Diego, California
2005
March 24, 2012
Q. Good afternoon
I'm a using DC PVD sputtering to deposit layers of TiN and CrN. I am getting CrN coatings of blueish/greenish color, not the silver color as expected.
The parameters used are:
Ar, partial pressure 2x10-3 Torr
N, partial pressure 4x10-3 Torr
Operating pressure 1x10-2 Torr
Sputtering Power 60 W
Temperature 400°
I would very much appreciate advice on the reactive parameter or condition to have the CrN in silver color.
J. Garduno
- Monterrey, Mexico
A. At 60 W sputtering of Cr would be too slow. But nitrogen would be high. In addition residual oxygen would also be important. Increasing the sputtering power in order to increase the chromium content would be helpful.
H.R. Prabhakara - ConsultantBangalore Plasmatek - Bangalore Karnataka India
March 28, 2012
Q. I run a PVD coater in Bridgeport, Michigan. We do TiN and CrN coatings on small medical implants and drills. We have been having an intermittent problem with one of our CrN coatings. After coating, the parts appear to have small white specks on them which actually are voids in the coating.
I suspect that the voids are a form of outgassing, possibly from a previous operation where we use a sandblast/aluminum oxide mixture to give the pieces a customer required finish.After the blasting operation the parts are passivated for 30 minutes in a 50% nitric acid bath,and then cleaned.
We are considering omitting the aluminum oxide from the finishing operation. Are we on the right track?
- Bridgeport, Michigan U.S.A.
July 19, 2012
A. You have not mentioned the cleaning steps. The problem could be due to water droplets evaporating from the tools and leaving some residue.
H.R. Prabhakara - ConsultantBangalore Plasmatek - Bangalore Karnataka India
July 23, 2012
A. What kind of the substrate you are trying to PVD? I used to have experience with some hollow core substrates which were leaked during the coating process and caused some Chromium oxide nitrite film which is dark blue color.
Tana Pap- Portland, Oregon, USA
September 18, 2012
Can chrome VI be generated under PVD conditions?
Q. Hello,
I work at a darts factory and we've recently purchased a cathodic arc PVD machine.
We have been making TiO, TiN, and CrC coatings for a few months. I was wondering if there is any risk of generating hexavalent chrome when depositing CrO or CrN coatings?
- Katikati, New Zealand
August 26, 2019
A. No.
Jim Treglio - scwineryreview.com
PVD Consultant & Wine Lover
San Diego, California
August 28, 2019
Q. I am looking to Chrome plate a copper pan with PVD. I am wondering how thick I can make that coating . Is this done with multiple passes or simply longer runs in the PVD machine. Because the softness of the underlying copper, how thick of a coating would I need to consider to have a long lasting finish. Would there be any suggestions as to hardening the copper prior to adding the chrome?
William Durham- Baltimore MD USA
September 18, 2019
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