Abstract
To improve the delamination energy of a sputtered SiC film deposited on a tool steel substrate, conical precipitates were formed on the surface of the substrate prior to the SiC coating using a sputter-etching method proposed by the authors. A micro edge-indent method was employed to evaluate the delamination energy of the SiC film. The results showed that the precipitates remained on the delamination surface when the height and the dispersion were small. The load at delamination of the sputter-etched specimens exceeded that of an un-etched specimen for small indentation distances from an edge, but was less than that of an un-etched specimen for large indentation distances from the edge. The delamination energy of the specimens with small precipitates exceeded that of the un-etched specimen due to an anchor effect.
