Mechanical and Corrosion Behaviors of Sputtered Cocrcufeni High Entropy Alloys

Conventional methods to increase corrosion resistance in alloys often compromise their mechanical properties because the microstructures required for increasing corrosive resistance sometimes conflict with those that are most conducive to high mechanical strength. In nine distinct runs, RF-magnetron sputtering is used to deposit CoCrCuFeNi-HEAs films at various RF-power, temperature, and sputtering times; the HEAs film characterization was conducted using an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), the X-ray diffraction (XRD), nanoindentation, and Potentiostat. The AFM result reveals that the coating exhibited uniformly distributed microstructure, and the surface roughness decreases with an increase in temperature. A mixed BCC and FCC phase was detected using XRD. The thin films demonstrated an increase in hardness as the deposition parameters increased, with the CoCrCuFeNi HEAs film coatings having a microhardness between 432 and 1850 HV, which is more than 3 times greater and dominant to the substrates with hardness at 436.6 HV. At room temperature (RT), the coating exhibited the highest rate of corrosion, demonstrating the importance of high temperature in enhancing the corrosion resistance of HEA film coatings. Overall, the coated substrate had a lower corrosion rate as compared to the bare substrate. Hence, CoCrCuFeNi HEA thin film enhanced the corrosion resistance and microhardness at the higher deposition time and RF power of 90 min and 200W. Thus, this study assists in producing superior materials and ideal parameters using RF sputtering technology, enabling process optimization for each application, and increasing their potential for usage in harsh environments.