Nitriding of titanium by hollow cathode assisted active screen plasma and its electro-tribological properties

Titanium presents good corrosion resistance, a high strength-to-weight ratio, but poor tribological properties. However, these can be enhanced by nitriding processes. Hollow cathode assisted active screen plasma has proved to be an effective and fast nitriding technique. In this work, the effect of process parameters (hollow cathode induced temperature and plasma intensity, electrical bias…) on the resulting surface microstructure (XRD, SEM/EDS), finishing and hardness of titanium (TiGr4) have been studied. Additionally, the electro-tribological properties have been evaluated on a ball on cylinder reciprocating configuration. The results show that hollow cathode assisted active screen plasma nitriding of titanium can produce titanium nitride surfaces with thicknesses far exceeding those typical in PVD coatings. Moreover, higher plasma processing intensities can generate same layer thicknesses at lower temperatures, minimizing the deleterious effect on grain size growth. Finally, monitoring of the electrical contact resistance can provide valuable information concerning the evolution of the status of the surfaces.