Synthesis of Ti-based metallic glass thin film in high vacuum pressure on 316 L stainless steel

Abstract

Surface modification of ordinary alloys by advanced coating provides a means to maintain the bulk properties of the alloy and thereby its utility in sensitive applications. In this paper, we describe the deposition of a Ti-based metallic glass thin film on 316 L stainless steel using a high vacuum pulse laser deposition (HVPLD) process without a bulk metallic glass (MG) source as target. A predominant amorphous single phase film was obtained in the proper chemical composition (Ti57Cu28{Zr0.95-Hf0.05}5Si10) by controlling several process parameters, including the target rotation speed and vacuum pressure. Our HPLD configuration entailed high vacuum pressure (less than 13.3 × 10-6 Pa), a target rotation speed in the range of 1500-2000 rotation per minute (rpm) and a substrate temperature between 450 and 600°C. These parameters provide excellent control over the amorphicity of the filmmatrix. Ourwork opens up interesting opportunities to improve the poor surface properties of metallic alloys specially biometallic alloys by depositing a thin film of Ti-based MG on their surface, which can also overcome the problem of MG bulk form production as we just deposited a thin film of MG. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.