I am investigating a process to create a dense amorphous "glass" on a metal foil substrate. The process involves re-flowing a glass material on a thin Cu metal foil. I heat the metal foil to melt the glass, followed by a fast quench to prevent crystallization. The problem is the glass will bead up on the foil surface due to surface energy changes at 850c. Right now the Cu foil is used as is without any special cleaning or preparation. Any ideas I can try to improve the wettability of the copper to prevent this?
Would it be possible to substitute the copper foil with an alternative material? If it must be copper then possibly a surface treatment of the copper (eg chemical conversion coating) may alter wettability.
An alternative approach might be to alter the nature of the glass, e.g. by addition of small qty of "impurity" to the molten glass.
You could try coating your Cu with a thin film of some sacrificial layer, which will evaporate off as the environment reaches 850C. I have seen (< 10 nm) antimony and cadmium layers used for this in solid-state dewetting. Although it would likely be worth investigating their surface energies to see if they're much different from the Cu.
Also, cleaner Cu will certainly be more wettable.
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