Formation and Analysis of Multilayer Multielement Nanostructured Metal Films

The development of alloys called high-entropy alloys, which consist of several (usually five or more) basic elements, in contrast to conventional alloys with one and rarely two basic elements, indicates the emergence of a new class of metallic materials with a unique combination of mechanical, physical, tribological, and other properties. The aim of this work is to analyze the results obtained in the study of the elemental and phase composition, and defect substructure of multilayer multielement nanostructured metal films (so-called high-entropy alloys of nonstoichiometric composition) by X-ray diffraction analysis and transmission diffraction electron microscopy. Films of high-entropy alloys are formed by depositing a metal plasma onto a substrate, which is formed as a result of the vacuum arc plasma-assisted simultaneous independent evaporation of cathodes of the following groups of metals: Nb, Mo, Cr, Ti, Al (sample 1) and Ti, Al, Cu, Zr, and Nb (sample 2). The elemental composition of the films is revealed. It is found that the obtained films are multilayer and have a nanocrystalline structure. Sample 1 is a single-phase material based on a MoNbCrTiAl solid solution with a body-centered cubic (bcc) crystal lattice with a parameter of 0.3166 nm. Sample 2 is an X-ray amorphous material. It is found that the microhardness of films 1 deposited on VK8 hard alloy turns out to be higher than that of films 2.