Tough-to-machine materials such as stainless steel, Ni-base alloys and titanium alloys are more easily cut using tools having a high-performance titanium-aluminide coating applied using PVD arc technology.

Arc technology currently is the most widely used industrial physical vapor deposition (PVD) technology for depositing wear protective hard coatings. However, sputtering technology often is used in the area of basic research primarily because it lends itself better to the thin-film technology analytical methods used.