**Acknowledgements**

The authors are grateful to Professor Sandra Carvalho of the Minho University (Portugal) who performed the EDS and XPS measurements and the professors Sebastian Calderon and Paulo Ferreira of INL-International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory who performed HRTEM.

### *Silicon Materials*

The authors are also grateful to the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL) for its financial support through the projects: "Recubrimientos Funcionales de (Zr, Ag, Si)N y (Zr, Cu, Si)N producidos por la técnica de Co-Sputtering Magnetrón reactive" and "Resistencia a la corrosión de recubrimientos de (Ag, Zr, Si)N y (Ti, Zr, Si)N producidos por Co-Sputtering Reactivo".
