High‐Throughput Magnetron‐Sputtered Compositionally Graded TiZrNbMoAl Nitride Coatings with Enhanced Tribological Performance

To address the urgent need for ultra‐wear‐resistant protective coatings on structural alloys under extreme tribological conditions, this study employed a high‐throughput magnetron sputtering approach to efficiently synthesize four compositional‐graded TiZrNbMoAl nitride‐coating zones under identical and equidistant geometric conditions, enabling systematic investigation of composition–structure–property relationships; comprehensive characterization (FESEM/EDS, GIXRD, XPS, nanoindentation, tribometry) confirmed thickness (1.0–1.3 μm), dense microstructures, and dominant face‐centered cubic (FCC) phase across all zones, with the TiZrNb‐near coating exhibiting the finest nanograins (8.08 nm) induced by atomic size mismatch–driven lattice distortion, resulting in exceptional hardness (28.36 ± 1.68 GPa), lowest residual stress (−0.82 GPa) and friction coefficient (0.102 ± 0.003), and minimal wear rate (1.82 ± 0.07 × 10 −8 mm 3 /(N·m)), two orders of magnitude lower than bare AISI304 steel under polyalphaolefins (PAO) oil lubrication, while XPS‐verified solid‐solution nitrogen incorporation (<10 at.%) within FCC lattices, alongside controlled compositional gradients (Ti/Zr/Nb: 22–35 at.%, Mo: 15–32 at.%, Al: 3–7 at.%), was identified as the key mechanism enabling concurrent strengthening and wear resistance enhancement, thereby demonstrating the efficacy and scalability of the static‐tray high‐throughput sputtering strategy for rapid discovery of advanced nitride coatings.