Maraging steels belong to the group of ultra-high strength materials and are often used in critical aerospace, automotive and tooling components. By applying a surface treatment such as nitriding, the fatigue and wear resistance can be improved. The microstructural features that influence the (very) high cycle fatigue response of nitrided maraging steels are studied in this work. Although the used steel has practically no inclusions, it was found that small surface imperfections, introduced during processing, may form potential fatigue initiation points. The samples are nitrided during aging in order to form nitrided layers with various thicknesses, microstructures and hardness profiles without formation of a continuous (compound) iron nitride layer. Data from microhardness tests, scanning electron microscopy, electron backscatter diffraction, x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy were used to characterize the microstructure of the layers. Bending fatigue tests were employed to evaluate the fatigue response of the steel. It was found that the best fatigue behavior is obtained in samples with a thin diffusion zone with a narrow constant hardness region. In this zone, coherent disc-shaped nitride precipitates are detected with TEM
