Invited speaker
Doctor Feng Huang
Vitalink Technology Co., Ltd.
E-mail: feng.huang@vtlnk.com
Title: Research on the Surface Friction Performance of Key Components Controlled by Ion Beam Technology.
Profile:
Dr. Feng Huang, of Vitalink Technology Co., Ltd. at Shenzhen, China, is currently the Deputy CTO in charge of developing new PVD coatings and related technologies. Since 1998 he has been working in the area of vacuum coating, and thus accumulated widespread experience in various aspects of physical vapor deposition. He has demonstrated technical capabilities in application-oriented design of coating alloys and, by fine-tuning holistically the equipment-process-structure-properties relationship, thus optimized the performance of coated parts. Under his leadership, superb coating performance has been identified under severe conditions as diverse as wear, corrosion, oxidation, anti-bacteria, dielectrics, optical reflectance, anti-stiction, emission of electrons, etc. His proven achievements also include some multifunctional PVD coatings for highly complex situations.
He obtained his Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Alabama, USA, in 2003. Prior to his current position, he worked as senior engineers for several hard-disk companies in the Silicon Valley, north California, for 4 years, and then as a Group Leader and Professor in Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (Ningbo, Zhejiang) within the Chinese Academy of Sciences for 12 years.
Dr. Huang is a holder of >50 Chinese Patents and has published >100 academic papers.
Abstract:
Knowledge of underlying phase equilibrium thermodynamics is critical to the efficient processing or synthesis of candidate materials; this is best illustrated by the classic Fe-C equilibrium phase diagram in heat treatments of steels. Similar phase diagrams, however, have found limited usage in hard coatings prepared by far-from-equilibrium processes such as physical vapor deposition (PVD). This presentation aims to introduce the concept of metastable phase diagrams and, on this basis, to re-interpret experimental observations on some popular nitrides, carbides, and borides. Primary attention will be devoted to multi-element Ti-containing nitrides to highlight the effect of equilibrium thermodynamics on the formation of metastable phases and microstructural evolution. We demonstrate that qualitative topological arguments, rather than quantitative thermodynamic calculations, seem adequate in many cases to provide important guidelines for accelerated process development.