ADHESION STRENGTH OF COATING SUBSTRATE AND SURFACE MORPHOLOGY OF PRETREATMENT

Premature failure of coated tool often results from a poor adhesion of coating-substrate and shortens the lifetime of the tool. The results of increasing the adhesion strength of thin film coatings on cutting tool inserts by pretreating the inserts with sandblasting technique to obtain a desirable surface morphology of the inserts are presented. A geometric model representing the ideal surface morphology is established to enhance the nucleation density and adhesion strength of coating-substrate. Thin film coating experiment is conducted on the substrates of four different sample groups. Indentation and wear tests are performed on coated inserts to evaluate the effect of sandblasting on the adhesion strength of the coatings. A theoretical analysis is provided on the formation and growth of atom clusters in terms of the contact angle and the thermodynamic barrier of a substrate to predict thin film nucleation.

Thermal activation of Ti_((1-x))Au_((x))thin films with enhanced hardness and biocompatibility

The lifetime of orthopaedic implants can be extended by coating the softer Ti6Al4V alloy with harder biocompatible thin films.In this work,thin films of Ti_((1-x))Au_((x))are grown on Ti_(6)Al_(4)V and glass substrates by magnetron sputtering in the entire x=0-1 range,before their key biomechanical properties are performance tuned by thermal activation.For the first time,we explore the effect of in-situ substrate heating versus ex-situ post-deposition heat-treatment,on development of mechanical and biocompatibility performance in Ti-Au films.A~250% increase in hardness is achieved for Ti-Au films compared to bulk Ti6Al4V and a~40%improvement from 8.8 GPa as-grown to 11.9 and 12.3 GPa with in-situ and ex-situ heat-treatment respectively,is corelated to changes in structural,morphological and chemical properties,providing insights into the origins of super-hardness in the Ti rich regions of these materials.X-ray diffraction reveals that as-grown films are in nanocrystalline states of Ti-Au intermetallic phases and thermal activation leads to emergence of mechanically hard Ti-Au intermetallics,with films prepared by in-situ substrate heating having enhanced crystalline quality.Surface morphology images show clear changes in grain size,shape and surface roughness following thermal activation,while elemental analysis reveals that in-situ substrate heating is better for development of oxide free Ti3Auβ-phases.All tested Ti-Au films are non-cytotoxic against L929 mouse fibroblast cells,while extremely low leached ion concentrations confirm their biocompatibility.With peak hardness performance tuned to>12 GPa and excellent biocompatibility,Ti-Au films have potential as a future coating technology for load bearing medical implants.

Solution-processable precursor route for fabricating ultrathin silica film for high performance and low voltage organic transistors

Silica is one of the most commonly used materials for dielectric layer in organic thin-film transistors due to its excellent stability, excellent electrical properties, mature preparation process, and good compatibility with organic semiconductors. However, most of conventional preparation methods for silica film are generally performed at high temperature and/or high vacuum. In this paper, we introduce a simple solution spin-coating method to fabricate silica thin film from precursor route, which possesses a low leakage current, high capacitance, and low surface roughness. The silica thin film can be produced in the condition of low temperature and atmospheric environment. To meet various demands, the thickness of film can be adjusted by means of preparation conditions such as the speed of spin-coating and the concentration of solution. The p-type and n-type organic field effect transistors fabricated by using this film as gate electrodes exhibit excellent electrical performance including low voltage and high performance. This method shows great potential for industrialization owing to its characteristic of low consumption and energy saving, time-saving and easy to operate.

Facile and robust strategy to antireflective photo-curing coating through self-wrinkling

We reported a facile and bio-inspired strategy for obtaining antireflective （AR） coating through polymerization-induced self-wrinkling. Upon irradiation of light, the complex wrinkle micro-patterns with different morphologies were generated spontaneously on the surface of coating during photo-cross- linking, which enables the photo-curing coating can decrease reflection. The resulting photo-curing coating exhibits a high transmittance over 90% and low reflection below 5% ～ 8%, with an efficiency anti- reflection of 4% ～ 7%; compared to the flat blank coating. The successful application of these AR coatings with wrinkles pattern to encapsulate the thin film solar cells results in appreciable photovoltaic performance improvement of more than 4% ～ 8%, which benefits from the decrease of the light reflection and increase of optical paths in the photoactive layer by the introduction of wrinkling pattern. Furthermore, the efficiency improvements of the solar cells are more obvious, with a remarkable increase of 8.5%, at oblique light incident angle than that with vertical light incident angle