Nowadays for development of advanced hard coatings it is of major importance how microstructural engineered and compositionally modulated films are influenced by thermal processes. With the knowledge about structural behaviour of coatings, tailored properties for the fields of application are feasible. The present thesis presents TiN/Cu multilayer and nanocomposite coatings consisting of two phases deposited by sputtering. Structural investigations, stress relaxation due to thermal cycling and tribological behaviour have been investigated. Multilayer structures exhibit a correlation between domain size and bilayer thickness of Cu in the as-deposited as well as in the annealed state whereas it stays constant for TiN. Nanocomposite coatings with a metal content up to 30 at.% show small domain sizes up to 22 nm for TiN and Cu. Stress reduction during thermal cycling bases on plastic deformation of Cu and on defect annihilation of TiN for multilayers as well as for nanocomposites. Tribological properties are strongly influenced by oxidation even at room temperature