DEPOSITION OF TITANIUM ALUMINIUM NITRIDE THIN LAYER ON HIGH SPEED STEEL SUBSTRATE BY RADIO FREQUENCY SPUTTERING Sigit Tri Wicaksono 1 , I G.N.B. Dwistha Prayukti 1 , Agung Purniawan 1 , and Tri Mardji Atmono 2 1 Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS), Sukolilo Surabaya, Indonesia 2 Pusat Sains dan Teknologi Akselerator, Badan Tenaga Nuklir Nasional (BATAN), Babarsari Yogyakarta, Indonesia E-Mail: dwisthaprayukti1991@gmail.com, sigit@mat-eng.its.ac.id, agung_pur@mat-eng.its.ac.id, trimardji-a@batan.go.id ABSTRACT High Speed Steel (HSS) has been widely used in manufacturing industry as one of cutting tool materials because of its good mechanical properties yet with a low price. However, since this material has a low thermal resistance property, it will limit its application when used in dry cutting process. Several methods have been used to improve the cutting performance of HSS in dry cutting. One of them was by growing a thin layer of hard coating on the contact surface of the cutting tool material. In this research, Titanium Aluminium Nitride layer were deposited on AISI M41 High Speed Steel substrate by using Radio Frequency (RF) Sputtering method. The aims of this study were to analyze the effect of variations of Aluminium surface area ratios (10, 20, 30, and 40 %) on the Titanium target and also to analyze the effect of deposition time (15, 30, and 45 minutes) on the composition, phase characterization and morphology of the thin layer that formed. The formation of TiAlN and AlN crystalline compounds were observed by X-Ray Diffraction method. A dense layer with a thickness range from 1.4 to 5.2 µm was observed by using a Scanning Electron Microscopy. It was known that the deposition time affect the thickness and also the roughness of the layer. The topography images by Atomic Force Microscopy showed that the deposition time of 45 minutes produce the finest layer with the surface roughness of 10.8 nm. Keywords: High Speed Steel, Titanium Aluminium Nitride, Radio Frequency Sputtering I. INTRODUCTION Requirements for greater productivity and better quality of products in the manufacturing process increase the need for high performance cutting tools. Some mechanical properties that must be owned by these high performance cutting tools such as high hardness, high wear resistance, thermal stability and also high oxidation resistance. High Speed Steel (HSS) is one of the cutting tools that have been widely used in manufacturing industries. However, the performance of this material is not high enough to support an advance cutting processes such as dry cutting. Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) coatings, such as Titanium Aluminium Nitride (TiAlN) are widely used for numerous metal cutting applications due to their high hardness, low friction, wear, and oxidation resistance. [2] The addition of aluminium (Al) into this TiAlN layer has been known can increase its wear and oxidation properties through the formation of Al 2 O 3 dense layer when heated in elevated temperature [7]. This layer will act as a protective layer to prevent diffusion of oxygen into the covered surface [3] and also can lubricate the friction pair contact and isolate the coating underneath [6]. There have been many methods to synthesize TiAlN thin layer such as magnetron sputtering, arc evaporation, ion beam-assisted deposition and arc bonding sputtering [12]. In this research TiAlN thin layers were deposited on an AISI M41 HSS substrate by Radio Frequency magnetron sputtering. The effects of various surface area ratios of Al to Ti and deposition time on the composition, layer thickness, phase, and roughness of TiAlN layer were investigated. The phase and morphology characterization of the TiAlN layer were examined by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy method, respectively. The composition of the layers were determined by using Energy Dispersive X-Ray spectroscopy (EDX). Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) was used to identify surface topology and roughness of the TiAlN layer. II. MATERIALS AND METHODS Materials The substrate material employed for this research was AISI M41 High Speed Steel with the composition of alloys given in Table 1 [1]. Before deposition, the substrates were abraded with SiC paper and then cleaned in alcohol for 10 min. The target used for TiAlN deposition were pure (99.99 %) titanium 75 mm in diameter and pure aluminium (99.00 %). The aluminium targets then covered titanium targets to achieve various surface area ratios of Al to Ti which were used in this research (10, 20, 30, and 40 %). Table-1. Composition of AISI M41 Element C Si Cr V W Mo Co Amount (%) 1.10 0.33 4.13 2.00 6.63 3.75 8.25 Thin Layer Deposition Before sputtering, the chamber was evacuated down to base pressure of 9 × 10 -6 Torr by using both mechanical and diffusion pumps. Once the vacuum was The 2nd International Conference on Civil Engineering Research (ICCER) 2016 “Contribution of Civil Engineering toward Building Sustainable City” 104 Structural Engineering