Titanium diboride TiB2 - targets and coatings

Titanium diboride (TiB2) coatings of hexagonal crystal structure are very hard. In addition to the hardness in room temperature, TiB2 layers maintain its hardness and chemical inertness at elevated temperatures during the machining processes, even in contact with aluminum and its alloys. The most impressive points is: TiB2 coating layer keeps its high elastic modulus, compressive strength, and wear resistance at very high machining temperatures.

Therefore, coatings made of TiB2 layers are very popular and used in forming, tool cutting, injection molding and many other applications, where a superior tribological behavior is essential.

There are two things which are very critical when TiB2 coatings are applied for better performance.

1. Coating Process technology and

2. Target materials quality.

There are the two important parameters that directly influence the internal stress, coating microstructure, which are ultimately transform into coating properties and product functionalities during machining process.

Hardness higher than 4000 HV is often demanded by customers for TiB2 coatings.

While maintaining such high hardness, it is also very crucial to lower the elastic modulus to keep the wear resistance high. Apart from this, there are also several challenges remains intact when employing TiB2 material for industrial applications with high scalability in particular fracture toughness, compressive stress and poor adhesion, which require the careful selection of process technology and quality of target materials.