Magetron Sputtering Preparation And Chatacterization Of Novel Functional Optical Films

Optical thin films have been widely applied in optical communications, environment sciences,and military usages.In this work,a few novel optical functional thin films,including SiO_x thin films,high temperature optical thin films, and self-cleaning thin films,were prepared by magnetron sputtering technique.Some results valuable for industrial applications were obtained by optimizing the materials, micro-structure and compositions,as well as the deposition processes.The factors and intrinsic mechanisms which may affect the properties of these functional films were also discussed.Based on the experimental studies and analyses,we have the following conclusions:1.SiO_x films with different oxygen contents were prepared by reactive magnetron sputtering.The dependences of optical properties on the annealing temperature were studied.Influences of the annealing temperatures on the microstructure and compositional changes were studied.The phase separation,stress relaxation and healing effect,and the mechanisms of the optical refractive index changes of the SiO_x films were discussed.2.In order to explore materials for high temperature applications,the deterioration behaviors of the traditional optical materials,such as Nb₂O₅ and Ta₂O₅,during annealing were studied.We found that the Yttria-stabilized Zirconia(YSZ) material can be used as an optical material and have excellent thermal stability. The optical properties and micro-structures of YSZ films were analyzed,and the intrinsic mechanisms of the thermal stability were discussed.The optical properties of the obtained YSZ/SiO₂ multilayer films were stable at temperatures up to 800℃.This work extended the application of optical films to the high temperature area.3.ZnO buff layer was found to have a crystallinity enhancement affect to the TiO₂ layer,the intrinsic mechanism was discussed.It is suggested that a ZnO under-layer can be used for tailoring the microstructure and surface morphology of TiO₂ films.The photo-catalysis,self-cleaning property and the factor affecting the properties of the TiO₂/ZnO double layer films were studied.It was found that the double layer films show better photo-catalysis and self-cleaning properties than TiO₂ single layer films.This method has a promising application value in producing TiO₂ self-clean thin films.