US Patent 9828254 Surface-coated cutting tool

A surface-coated cutting tool according to the present invention includes a coating. The coating has an α-Al2O3 layer. The α-Al2O3 layer includes a lower layer portion and an upper layer portion. When respective crystal orientations of crystal grains of α-Al2O3 are specified by performing EBSD analyses with an FE-SEM on a cross-section obtained when the α-Al2O3 layer is cut along a plane including a normal line of a surface of the α-Al2O3 layer and a color map is prepared based on the crystal orientations, in the color map, an area in the upper layer portion occupied by the crystal grains of which normal direction of a (001) plane is within ±10° with respect to a normal direction of the surface of the α-Al2O3 layer is equal to or more than 90%, and such an area in the lower layer portion is equal to or less than 50%.