A method is proposed for vacuum-coating a substrate using a plasma-CVD method. In order to control ion bombardment during the vacuum coating, a substrate voltage produced independently from a coating plasma is applied to the substrate. The substrate voltage is modified during the coating. The substrate voltage is a direct voltage that is pulsed in bipolar fashion with a frequency of 0.1 kHz to 10 MHz. A wear-resistant and friction-reducing multilayer structure of alternating hard material individual layers and carbon or silicon individual layers is proposed.