Effects of corundum-structured seeds on the low-temperature growth and hardness of the alumina-based films. (1st July 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Cheng, Yitian; Chu, Chenglin; Zhou, Peng
• Is Part Of: Materials research express. Volume 7:Number 7(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-07-01
• Subjects: corundum-structured seed -- alumina-based film -- composite target -- low temperature -- depth-sensing indentation; Materials science -- Research -- Periodicals; Materials science -- Periodicals; 620.11
• DOI: 10.1088/2053-1591/ab9ee1
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2053-1591

Abstract

Abstract: The corundum-structured seeds have been introduced into alumina films using Al + α -Al2 O3 composite and Al100−x Crx (x = 10, 20, 30) alloy as targets by reactive magnetron sputtering. The effects of the seeds on the elemental composition, phase composition, structure characteristic, surface morphology and nano-hardness of the alumina-based films have been investigated. The Al target has also been sputtered to prepare the alumina film as reference. The film is composed of single-phase α -Al2 O3 by sputtering the Al + α -Al2 O3 composite target at 550 °C, while the solid solution α -type (Al0.7 Cr0.3 )2 O3 was detected in the film prepared with the Al70 Cr30 target at the same temperature. The nano-hardness of the pure α -Al2 O3 film and the α -(Al0.7 Cr0.3 )2 O3 film were measured as ∼23.5 GPa and ∼28.5 GPa, respectively, which are much higher than that of the film deposited from Al target (∼16.3 GPa).