C. Fuger, R. Hahn, L. Zauner, et al. Anisotropic super-hardness of hexagonal WB2±z thin films[J]. Materials Research Letters, 2022, 10(2): 70-77.
DOI:
C. Fuger, R. Hahn, L. Zauner, et al. Anisotropic super-hardness of hexagonal WB2±z thin films[J]. Materials Research Letters, 2022, 10(2): 70-77.DOI: 10.1080/21663831.2021.2021308.
Anisotropic super-hardness of hexagonal WB2±z thin films
Transition metal diboride-based thin films are promising candidates to replace state-of-the-art protective and functional coating materials due to their unique properties. Here
we focus on hexagonal WB
2-z
showing that the AlB
2
structure is stabilized by B vacancies exhibiting its energetic minima at sub-stoichiometric WB
1.5
. Nanoindentation reveals super-hardness of 0001 oriented α-WB
2-z
coatings
linearly decreasing by more than 15 GPa with predominant 101¯1 orientation. This anisotropy is attributed to differences in the generalized stacking fault energy of basal and pyramidal slip systems
highlighting the feasibility of tuning mechanical properties by crystallographic orientation relations.