While Nb and Ti are well known as biocompatible materials, the use of NbN coating is reduced, regardless its higher microhardness, due to its increased brittleness compared to TiN or TiAlN films.

The objective of the current work was to take advantage of the known biocompatibility of Nb and Ti layers, by depositing on stainless steel a new superlattice coating consisting of alternate multilayer NbN/TiAlN. Different nanostructured NbN/TiAlN multilayer films, with various bilayer periods (4 ¸ 80 nm), were deposited on 316L stainless steel specimens by the cathodic arc method. The influence of bilayer period of this superlattice coating on the wear behavior in artificial physiological solution was investigated. The coated samples were investigated with respect to elemental (AES, XPS), phase composition and texture (XRD), Vickers microhardness, thickness, adhesion and wear resistance. It was found that the coatings' properties depended both on the bilayer period and on the elemental composition on the individual layers. As compared with the NbN and TiAlN monolayers, the multilayered structures led to an increase of the microhardness with about 3 ÷ 5 GPa. While all coatings had a good adhesion, the highest adhesion, as well as the highest wear resistance were obtained for films with bilayer period in the nanometer range.

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