Preparation and regulation of AlCrNiTiSi high entropy alloy coating by a multi-arc magnetic filter cathode vacuum arc system

Abstract The high entropy alloy coatings (HECs), as a breakthrough in the field of increasingly saturated traditional material, have broad development potential, but their applications are restricted by the shortcoming of preparation technology. In this paper, based on the multi-arc magnetic filter cathode vacuum arc system, which is equipped with a 120° Y-shaped magnetic filter duct that has the reasonable match between the geometric size of magnetic filter duct and the uniformity distribution of magnetic field intensity determined by finite element analysis and magnetic field design, the transport of multiple ions is real-time regulated by the relationship among the arc source, focusing magnetic field, the magnetic field of filter duct, arc discharge and ions transmission. Under the detailed process parameters of TiAlSi target arc current of 110 A, CrNi target arc current of 90 A, magnetic field current of 2 A, and negative bias voltage of 100 V, the AlCrNiTiSi HEC is prepared by the novel multi-arc magnetic filter cathode vacuum arc technology for the first time. The AlCrNiTiSi coatings deposited by this system are uniform and dense, and the components are uniformly distributed. The AlCrNiTiSi HEC has good hardness of 13.92 GPa and excellent corrosion resistance in 5 % H2SO4 of the minimum Icorr and Ip of 3.16 × 10−6 and 1.28 × 10−5 A•cm−2.