AVS 46th International Symposium
    Applied Surface Science Division Wednesday Sessions
       Session AS-WeA

Paper AS-WeA8
Characterisation of Ceramics Thin Films Deposited by Plasma Assited CVD

Wednesday, October 27, 1999, 4:20 pm, Room 6A

Session: Oxides and Insulators
Presenter: G. Ceccone, European Commission Joint Research Centre, Italy
Authors: G. Ceccone, European Commission Joint Research Centre, Italy
P. Colpo, European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Italy
M. Baker, European Commission Joint Research Centre, Italy
P.N. Gibson, European Commission Joint Research Centre, Italy
P. Sauvageot, European Commission Joint Research Centre, Italy
F. Rossi, European Commission Joint Research Centre, Italy
Correspondent: Click to Email
The use of ceramics in biomedical applications has received large attention during the last two decades. In particular, ceramics and glasses have important applications as orthopedic and dental implants. However, since most of bioactive ceramics and glasses are relatively brittle they have to be applied as a coating on high-strength material such as titanium. In this paper, we report the possibility to depositing zirconia coatings by using Inductively Coupled Plasma Assisted CVD technique. Deposition have been performed in a cylindrical ICP reactor from tetra (tert-butoxy)-zircon precursor diluted in argon and oxygen. A 13.56 MHz generator was used for sustain the plasma, whilst the substrate negative bias voltage was controlled by an independent RF generator. The coating microstructural characteristics were investigated by SEM/EDX; XRD was used to assess the coating crystal structure, whereas the coating composition and stoichiometry was investigated by AES and XPS. The mechanical properties of the films have been assessed by nanoindentation and scratch tests. Zirconia coatings having a thickness between 1 and 10µm, and with a maximum hardness of 13GPa have been deposited under different plasma conditions. Correlation between the deposition parameters, such as the gas composition, RF biases, and RF power, and coating properties have been investigated. AES measurements indicate that films having a stoichiometric composition can be deposited over a large range of gas composition, whilst the crystalline structure and mechanical properties of the film are strongly dependent on the ion bombardment energy. The possibility of tailoring the coating characteristics by controlling the ion energy, i.e. the substrate negative bias is presented and discussed.