Deposition of Protective Nanostructured Diamond-Like Carbon Coatings on Aluminum Alloys

An investigation has been made into the effects of preparation of the surface of aluminum alloy substrates on the adhesion to them of diamond-like carbon coatings with a high content of sp 3 -bound carbon. Carbon coatings were deposited by the laser plasma method using a pulsed YAG:Nd 3+ laser with the wavelength λ = 1064 nm, the pulse length at half-height ~20 ns, and the maximum pulse energy ~0.4 J. Highly oriented pyrolytic graphite has been used as a source of carbon. Coatings have been deposited on AMg aluminum alloy substrate. The possibility has been shown for the deposition of high-adhesion diamond-like carbon coatings with a high content of sp 3 -bound carbon on aluminum alloys by the laser plasma method. An original method has been proposed for preparing the aluminum alloy surface before applying a protective carbon coating, with the said method consisting in the treatment of the substrate surface with plasma particles of an aluminum target accelerated to the energy of 1.5 keV.