Amorphous alumina thin films deposited on titanium: Interfacial chemistry and thermal oxidation barrier properties

Loïc Baggetto, Cédric Charvillat, Yannick Thébault, Jérôme Esvan, Marie Christine Lafont, Emmanuel Scheid, Gabriel M. Veith, Constantin Vahlas

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Ti/Al2O3 bilayer stacks are used as model systems to investigate the role of atomic layer deposition (ALD) and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) to prepare 30-180 nm thick amorphous alumina films as protective barriers for the medium temperature oxidation (500-600°C) of titanium, which is employed in aeronautic applications. X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) with selected area electron diffraction (SAED), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) results show that the films produced from the direct liquid injection (DLI) CVD of aluminum tri-isopropoxide (ATI) are poor oxygen barriers. The films processed using the ALD of trimethylaluminum (TMA) show good barrier properties but an extensive intermixing with Ti which subsequently oxidizes. In contrast, the films prepared from dimethyl aluminum isopropoxide (DMAI) by CVD are excellent oxygen barriers and show little intermixing with Ti. Overall, these measurements correlate the effect of the alumina coating thickness, morphology, and stoichiometry resulting from the preparation method to the oxidation barrier properties, and show that compact and stoichiometric amorphous alumina films offer superior barrier properties.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)470-480
Number of pages11
JournalPhysica Status Solidi (A) Applications and Materials Science
Volume213
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 1 2016

Funding

This work was financially supported by the STAE-RTRA foundation (Toulouse, France) under the RTRA-STAE/2014/P/VIMA/12 project grant. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Basic Energy Sciences (BES), Materials Sciences and Engineering Division supported a portion of this work (G.M.V., Ti thin film preparation).

FundersFunder number
STAE-RTRA foundation (Toulouse, France)RTRA-STAE/2014/P/VIMA/12
U.S. Department of Energy
Basic Energy Sciences

    Keywords

    • Ti/AlO
    • X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
    • deposition
    • interdiffusion
    • oxygen barriers
    • thin films

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