Magnetron Sputtering Metal Glass Film Preparation and the “Specimen Size Effect” of the Mechanical Property
CAO Qingping(), LV Linbo, WANG Xiaodong, JIANG Jianzhong
International Center for New-Structured Materials (ICNSM), School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
Cite this article:
CAO Qingping, LV Linbo, WANG Xiaodong, JIANG Jianzhong. Magnetron Sputtering Metal Glass Film Preparation and the “Specimen Size Effect” of the Mechanical Property. Acta Metall Sin, 2021, 57(4): 473-490.
Metallic glass thin film (MGTF) is a new thin film material developed based on metallic glasses. It has excellent physical, chemical, and mechanical properties owing to its disordered atomic packing structure. Moreover, nanostructured MGTF can be synthesized by adjusting the process of physical vapor deposition to construct nanostructure interfaces and overcome the intrinsic brittleness of bulky metallic glasses. Recently, the rapid development of MGTF in various fields has attracted extensive attention and has become a new research hotspot. In this paper, by reviewing the influence of preparation parameters on the microstructure and properties of MGTF, and sample size effect. In this manner, research progress is analyzed and summarized, and research prospects are briefly proposed to provide reference for researchers engaged in the study of MGTF.
Fig.1 DSC curves of Zr-Cu-Al ultrastable metallic glass thin films (SMG), quenched ribbons metallic glass (MG) and after annealing at different temperatures for 90 h (a), and influence of substrate temperature (Tsub) on the glass transition temperature (Tg) as compared with that of quenched metallic glass ribbon (Tg, quenched) (b) (δTg represents temperature difference between Tg and Tg, quenched)[19]
Fig.2 SEM images on the surface of 1 μm-thick Ni-Nb metallic glass films prepared at the substrate temperature of 293 K (a), 363 K (b), 423 K (c), and 493 K (d); STEM images of 50 nm-thick Ni-Nb films deposited at the substrate temperatures of 293 K (e) and 493 K (f)[23]
Fig.3 Hardness (H) (a) and elastic modulus (E) (b) of Ni-Nb metallic glass films prepared at various substrate temperatures, and density ratio (ρ/ρ293) of Ni-Nb metallic glass films density prepared at various substrate temperatures (ρ) as compared with that of films prepared at 293 K (ρ293) (c)[25]
Fig.4 DSC curves (heating rate is 20 K/min, temperature (T) rise from 623 K to 823 K) of metallic glass ribbon prepared by melt spinning technology and metallic glass thin film Zr-Cu-Al samples prepared by vapor deposition at different deposition rates (R) (a); changes of Tg and crystallization temperature (Tx) of the thin-film glass with the deposition rate and the comparison with the bulk metallic glass (b)[30]
Fig.5 XRD spectra of the Zr-Cu-Al metallic glass thin films and quenched ribbon after annealing at 973 K for 1 h, and the crystallization exothermic peaks in the DSC curves of ultrastable film and ordinary glass (inset)[30]
Fig.6 Top surface (a-c) and cross-sectional (d-f) SEM images of the Au-Cu-Pd-Ag-Si metallic glass thin films prepared at 0.4 Pa (a, d), 4 Pa (b, e), and 10 Pa (c, f), respectively[35]
Fig.7 The change curves of roughness (Ra) (a) and average particle size (b) of Au-Cu-Pd-Ag-Si metallic glass film with working pressure, respectively[35]
Fig.8 Top-surface (hierarchical microstructure area and microcracks were depicted by the dotted blue and red lines, respectively) (a) and cross-sectional (b) SEM images of the Ni60Nb40 metallic glass film under the conditions of 473 K substrate temperature and 30° tilt angle (Inset in Fig.8b shows the statistics histogram of the column size distribution), the surface root-mean-square (RMS) roughness changes (c), and density, particle size, columnar structure size vary with the substrate temperature (d)[38]
Fig.9 Influence of indentation depth on hardness in different metallic glass thin film alloy systems[43]
Fig.10 Density and elasticity of Ni-Nb metallic glass thin films vary with film thickness[47]
Fig.11 SEM images of Pd-Si metallic glass thin film micro-pillars with diameters of 3.61 μm (a), 1.84 μm (b), 440 nm (c), and 140 nm (d) after compression deformation[15]
Fig.12 Indentation morphology SEM images of Zr65Ni35 metallic glass thin films samples (thickness of 5 μm) in the focused ion beam (FIB) processing for 0 min (a), 10 min (b), 20 min (c), and 30 min (d); and average number of shear band and hardness reduction with the change of milling time (e)[58]
Fig.13 Fracture morphologies of the Zr-Ni metallic glass thin films with thicknesses of 300 nm (a), 400 nm (b), 520 nm (c), and 900 nm (d)[59]
Fig.14 The normalized electric resistance (R / R0, R0 and R denote electric resistance under strain-free and various strain states, respectively) vs strain recorded in situ during straining of Pd-Si metallic glass thin films with different thicknesses varied with the tensile strain (ε) (a), and the surface morphologies of the samples with thicknesses of 250 nm (b), 60 nm (c), 16 nm (d), 9 nm (e), and 7 nm (f) underwent 10% tensile strain[70]
Fig.15 Three different stages of crack/shear band evolution in 250 nm thick polymer-supported Pd82Si18 films after straining to 10% can be clearly distinguished[70]
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