| AVS 61st International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Thin Film | Thursday Sessions |
| Session TF-ThP |
| Session: | Thin Films Poster Session |
| Presenter: | Yuki Ishiyama, Aichi Institute of Technology, Japan |
| Authors: | Y. Ishiyama, Aichi Institute of Technology, Japan A. Matsumuro, Aichi Institute of Technology, Japan |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
We fabricated dispersed C60 molecules/Al nano-composite thin films using by a conventional vacuum evaporation method. The microstructural characterization of the films obtained clarified the uniform dispersion of C60 molecules in Al based film. Nano-indentation hardness of Al-1.0 wt.%C60 showed increase up to 3 times larger than that of Al film. These results clearly indicated that dispersion of C60 molecules in the conventional films contributes to drastic improvement in mechanical properties.
In this study, we tried to establish the synthesis technology of the composite thin films containing dispersed C60 molecules in order to apply practical uses in the industry fields. We focused on conventional high hardness TiN films fabricated using by RF magnetron sputtering method. For the purpose of evaporating C60 molecules, the heating evaporator was equipped directly below the substrate of existing RF magnetron sputtering chamber due to prevent from the influence of plasma. It was possible to control the deposition rates of two kinds of evaporation sources to become the predetermined compositions separately.
TiN films with constant thickness of 100 nm were deposited on Si(100) water-cooled substrates using by the RF magnetron sputtering deposition method for 30 minutes. The concentration of C60 molecule powder was changed in the range from 0.5 to 50 wt.%, and the evaporation temperature was controlled in the range of 473-673 K. The structure analyses of all nano-composite films prepared by X-ray diffraction method showed TiN crystalline structure, and FT-IR analysis clarified the existence of C60 molecules contained in TiN films. Nano-indentation studies showed that the hardness of the composite film of 2.0 wt.%C60/TiN showed the maximum hardness of 18 GPa and this value was increased up to 50 % larger than that of TiN film.
The present results clearly indicate that the conventional hard thin films prepared by RF sputtering should be also effective to synthesize remarkable hard composite thin films by dispersing C60 molecules. Therefore, this study let us know the bright future view of development of the innovative high-hard composite thin films reinforced using by C60 molecules.