I need to deposit Fe3O4 thin film over PDMS and I think sputtering is the best option available. However, I do not have an iron oxide target. That is why I was thinking of making a Fe3O4 target myself.
You would be better of buying a sputtering target. Making an oxide or ceramic target is tricky. You need to have the powder (easy), then have a properly sized die for pressing. This is not obvious for the following step: once pressed, you need to sinter the target at high enough temperature. However, it then tends to shrink, and will not match well for your magnetron - so you will need to make a new die.... Also, your machine shop should have some experience in designing and making dies in the first place.
If all is successful, home-made targets tend to break apart and pulverize during sputtering.
Alternatively, you could sputter an iron foil or disk, in oxygen atmosphere. It will be very slow and you may end up with a different oxide composition, but at least making the target is easy.
However, back to your original task: will the magnetite film stick to your PDMS at all?
In our laboratory often make a our target because to saving time and cost, something because its not available to buying a target we want. We know that we need high purity of material that will made to target usually we use minimal 4n, if we want to make a material with a doping (example ZnO:Au) we must mix and mill it about 3-4 hours. Then press it to size according to sputter about 15-20 minutes, we use home made DC Magnetron Sputtering usually make a target with diameter 2-3 cm and height 1-3 cm. Sintering the target we usually use 700oC (especially for ZnO target).
Dear Dr. Nemes,
Thanks you for your time and reply. Well, I want to have a uniformly deposited Fe3O4 nanoparticles over my "patterned" PDMS. I functionalized my PDMS with NH2 bearing groups and used carboxylated nanoparticles, but the SEM results were quite upsetting as the particles weren't deposited uniformly and they were agglomerated. That is why I thought of a thermal evaporation technique to deposit very thin layer of Fe3O4 to get a uniformly deposited particles on the pits and the posts. However, I think that sputtering the iron oxide molecules would be the best option available.
Thin films below 200 nm would be fragile and will have numerous breakage. However, I hope nanoparticles achieved by this method would stick to the membrane. I am not even sure if this work out, as I have not seen any iron oxide nano particle functionalized PDMS. I am trying to use these particles to mechanically stimulate the cells which are going to be cultured on these patterned membranes.
Any insight is welcomed,
Dear Margi,
I think your method is what I have in mind, too. What do you think about using a commercially available bulk Fe3O4 powder? Will that work just fine?
Dear Margi Fitriawan and all,
We also prefer preparing sputtering target by our own as you mentioned for time and cost saving. In my case, I prepared Sb2O3 doped SnO2 sputtering target in 2008. Usually I found that most of the research used from 0.5-0.9 of material melting point for sintering the sputtering target.
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