Sandvik Innovation Prize winners

Sandvik Scientific Council has awarded the Sandvik Innovation Prize 2023 to a team from Sandvik Coromant for their work on TiAlN/TiSiN nanomultilayers, a new coating platform for Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD). The team included Lars Johnson, Katherine Calamba Kwick, Carl-Fredrik Carlström, Ebba Saikoff, and Marta Saraiva.

PVD is one of two technologies used at Sandvik Machining Solutions for coating cutting tools. For over 20 years, TiAlN of different compositions has been the dominant coating material for PVD, and general improvements in the materials system have been increasingly difficult to find.

By depositing a nanomultilayer, i.e. alternating repeating layers of two coating materials, in this case of TiAlN and TiSiN, and controlling the nanolayer thicknesses, a coating with both improved wear resistance and toughness is the result.

The coating material concept has also been widened to include grain size control, TiAlN/TiSiN/CrAlN triple multilayers, and TiAlN/TiAlSiN multilayers through iterative R&D work.

“With this innovation, the application range of this family of coatings spans the full width of the PVD coating space for cutting tools, from turning inserts to sharp SRT endmills, and it has consistently allowed us to find product solutions with improved performance,” says Pasi Kangas Sandvik Scientific Council Chairman.

The innovation is being broadly implemented for the next generation of products and it is the basis for nearly all new PVD coating processes at Sandvik Coromant.

​Sandvik Innovation Prize was introduced in 2003 and consists of prize money and a diploma.