Hi, I want to deposit a metallic film (~800nm, sputtering, evaporation...) on top of a FTO glass to improve the conductivity of the substrate. The substrate will face temperatures of 500 ºC for 2h in air environments. I'd need a metal which does not oxidize or just the superficial nanometers, thus a significant part of it is still metallic
do you know any metals which can be deposited and stand these conditions? better if we can avoid Pt/Au/Ag and other expensive/rare materials
thanks a lot!
If you really want to avoid noble metals, you're going to have a hard time achieving your goal.
There are of course non-noble metals which form a passivating layer such as Al, Ti or Cr which will form thin oxide layers. You could check out if the passivation effect on these is sufficient up to your process temperature.
Following up on Jürgen's points, you could also consider Nb and Mo which can be sputtered and are stable with temperature. One other thought with your metal layer thickness and temperature, you might have to consider film stress that might cause the film to peel off the substrate.
Hi, Why not you anneal in the glove box under inner gas ( either N2 or Ar) to make sure there is no oxidation of your metal...Good Luck!
Noble metals, such as platinum or gold, resist oxidation in their natural state. Other such metals include ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, silver, osmium, and iridium.
You want to improve the conductivity of an FTO glass (typical thickness of FTO is then some 550 - 650 nm); this is a transparent conductive oxide. If you deposit any metal on top, it will make this substrate completely opaque as from thicknesses of some 80-100 nm.... By the way, because of the much higher conductivity of pure metals (compared to FTO), I wonder whether thicknesses of some 20-50 nm are already not sufficient .... You indicate 800 nm however (which is enormous). Remark indeed that such thick sputtered layers will have a lot of intrinsic stress ....
I don't know much about this problem, I'm just based on my experience with plating samples for electron microscopy. To increase the conductivity, either layers of precious metals (Pt / Rh, Au) or Cr or ordinary graphitic carbon are most often used. Plasma deposition is used for metals, carbon is deposited in an electric arc. Thicknesses are up to 50 nm. I think you could test the carbon, but a reasonable thickness, 800 nm is extremely much. Normal glass with a coating of 50 nm Cr is almost opaque.
Try the Ti/Pt bilayer metallsation, keep the Ti layer very thin (10 nm), whch works very on SiO2, hence I hope it should work well on FTO.
Suggest the following paper:
Article Comparison of Isothermal with Cyclic Oxidation Behavior of “...
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