Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
5464982 | Surface and Coatings Technology | 2017 | 6 Pages |
Abstract
In this study, cerium oxide (CeO2âx) coatings were prepared by magnetron sputtering in a gas mixture of Ar and O2. The effect of oxygen flow ratio (fO2) on the surface morphology, wetting behavior, chemical composition, microstructure and mechanical properties of CeO2âx coating were systematically investigated. The results showed that all CeO2âx coatings exhibited smooth surfaces and similar wetting behaviors with a hydrophobic feature. The water contact angle stabilized around 100°. Surface chemistry varied with different oxygen flow ratios and the presence of excess surface lattice oxygen led to a slight decrease in hydrophobicity. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses showed that the coating grown in pure Ar exhibited weak crystalline peaks. While after the incorporation of oxygen, CeO2âx coatings crystallized in a cubic CeO2 phase with preferred (111) orientation, and the peak intensity gradually decreased with increasing fO2. TEM study revealed the face-centered cubic (fcc) crystalline feature of deposited coatings and obtained Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) pattern confirmed the disordered crystalline structure among the coating deposited at 56% fO2. The hardness and elastic modulus of the coating could achieve ~ 18.1 GPa and ~ 190.2 GPa when deposited at 7% fO2, then decreased slightly with further increasing fO2.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Materials Science
Nanotechnology
Authors
Zhen Shi, Powan Shum, Zhifeng Zhou, Lawrence Kwok-Yan Li,