Nickel-titanium alloy, with the features of shape memory effect, superelasticity and biocompatibility offers many unique advantages for the biomedical application. These applications have included everything from surgical tools to permanent implants. However, many researchers highlighted the selective dissolution of Ni ion from the NiTi alloy during the corrosion process, which could lead to potential danger. Different surface treatments have been investigated to modify NiTi implants. Plasma immersion ion implantation and deposition (PIIID) is a novel method that can not only ensure excellent bonding strength between the coating and underlying material, but also overcome the line-in-sight shortcoming. In our present study, TiN/Ti, TiC/Ti, TiCN/Ti and ZrN/Zr coatings have been deposited on NiTi alloy by PIIID and a comparative study was done among these different coatings. The aim of depositing thin films of Ti or Zr before the ceramic coatings is to further improve the binding strength between the coatings and substrate. Surface characteristics, hardness, elastic modulus and corrosion properties were investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM), x-ray photoelectron spectrum (XPS), nanoindentation and electrochemical test. The results show that these four kind of have quite different surface characteristic, especially for the ZrN/Zr. The XPS survey and high resolution spectra demonstrate that all the coating surface exist high amount of oxygen due to surface oxidized in the atmosphere. The nanoindentation experiments verified that the modified surface had high hardness compared to that of the uncoated NiTi alloy. Based on the electrochemical measurement and ion releasing tests, we can concluded that the treated samples exhibit better corrosion resistance and depression of Ni ion releasing from the NiTi alloys in the Hank’s solution at 37 degree C.