Structure, Properties and Fabrication of the Solid Nanocrystalline Coatings Deposited in Several Ways

The review deals with a novel trend in nanomaterial fabrication and the nanotechnologies allowing one to fabricate the nanocomposite and nanocrystalline coatings with very high hardness and other perfect mechanical characteristics. Nitrides, silicides, oxides, and their combinations are used as examples to demonstrate fabrication ways, to study structures and properties of the resulting coatings, which are dependent on conditions and parameters of the deposition process. A special attention is paid to fabrication of nanocrystalline, multicomponent, and nanocomposite materials deposited using a vacuum-arc, magnetron, and ion-assisted deposition. Fields of possible future applications of such coatings are described briefly. The works dealing with the same aspects are analyzed, and physics of the processes occurring in hard and very hard coating fabrication is considered.