磁控溅射法进行涂层微纳结构设计与制备

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In this study, a four-inch zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructure was synthesized using radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering to maximize the electrochemical performance of the anode material of a lithium-ion battery. All materials were grown on cleaned p-type silicon (100) wafers with a deposited copper layer inserted at the stage. The chamber of the RF magnetron sputtering system was injected with argon and oxygen gas for the growth of the ZnO films. A hydrogen (H2) reduction process was performed in a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) chamber to synthesize the ZnO nanostructure (ZnO NS) through modification of the surface structure of a ZnO film. Field emission scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy were performed to confirm the surface and structural properties of the synthesized ZnO NS, and cyclic voltammetry was used to examine the electrochemical characteristics of the ZnO NS. Based on the Hall measurement, the ZnO NS subjected to H2 reduction had a higher electron mobility and lower resistivity than the ZnO film. The ZnO NS that was subjected to H2 reduction for 5 min and 10 min had average roughness of 3.117 nm and 3.418 nm, respectively.

This study examines the structure and properties of NiMo-C coatings synthesized via reactive magnetron sputtering of a NiMo alloy target in an argon/acetylene atmosphere. The coating structure evolves with carbon content from nanocrystalline, through amorphous to quasi-amorphous with a nanocolumnar structure. The nanostructure consists of metallic columns perpendicular to the substrate surrounded by an amorphous carbon shell. The coatings are evaluated for their potential use as catalytic materials in the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in an acidic environment. The medium carbon content coatings show optimal properties in this direction, i.e., high corrosion resistance in an acidic environment and good HER performance described by the Tafel slope and characteristic overpotentials. Even at the highest carbon content, 74 at. %, the Tafel slope does not increase substantially, which is more likely attributable to the distinctive nanocolumnar structure, ensuring the presence of catalytic centers in the form of metallic islands on the surface. At the highest current densities applied, a weak but visible correlation is observed between the characteristic overpotentials and the contact angle hysteresis derived from the wettability measurements.

The primary objective of this research is to fabricate and evaluate Nb₂O₅ thin films prepared via DC (direct current) reactive magnetron sputtering at target powers of 25 W, 50 W, and 75 W, deposited on quartz substrates and Ge wafers. The structural and morphological characteristics of the fabricated Nb₂O₅ thin films were analyzed using XRD (X-ray diffraction) and FE-SEM (field emission scanning electron microscopy), while their electrical and optical properties were characterized using UV-Vis spectrophotometry and I-V (current-voltage) tests. XRD results confirmed a natural polycrystalline structure with a hexagonal lattice, while FE-SEM imaging revealed uniform deposition and strong dependence of nanostructure size and configuration on deposition parameters. EDS (Energy-Dispersive Spectroscopy) analysis showed an increase in Nb content with higher sputtering power. The thin films demonstrated significant photosensitivity at a wavelength of 350 nm, achieving a maximum response of 514.89% at a sputtering power of 50 W. Although 350 nm was the primary wavelength tested, the UV-Vis absorbance spectra revealed a broader detection range in the UV spectrum, influenced by the DC sputtering power. Higher sputtering powers enhanced absorption in the UV range, attributed to improved film crystallinity and reduced defects, which sharpened the absorption edge. Further studies are required to assess the UV photosensitivity at additional wavelengths and determine the detection range comprehensively. Additionally, the dynamic potential of the sensors was evaluated through time-dependent response tests, indicating rapid rise and fall times suitable for real-time UV detection. These findings suggest that Nb₂O₅ thin films are promising candidates for visible-blind UV detectors and optoelectronic circuits, particularly in the UV-A range.

In this research, TiO2: Cu thin films deposited on a glass substrate with different thicknesses (100 ) and (200 ) nm by the radio frequency (R.F.) magnetron sputtering process using target TiO2: Cu. The sputtering deposition was performed by using the power of 100 Watt. Crystalline structure, surface morphology, and electronic structure were studied using X - ray difraction(XRD).XRD patterns demonstrate that TiO2 films deposited on a glass substrate at 500 C° are observed to be brookite (orthorhombic) polycrystalline phase with preferred orientation along (111). The average surface roughness (Ra) measured with atomic force microscopy (AFM) was 0.532 nm, and the minimum grain size was 40.5 nm for TiO2 doped 5%Cu.

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Strontium titanate thin films were deposited on a silicon substrate by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering. The structural and optical properties of these films were characterized by X-ray diffraction, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and spectroscopic ellipsometry, respectively. After annealing at 600–800 °C, the as-deposited films changed from amorphous to polycrystalline. It was found that an amorphous interfacial layer appeared between the SrTiO3 layer and Si substrate in each as-deposited film, which grew thicker after annealing. The optical parameters of the SrTiO3 film samples were acquired from ellipsometry spectra by fitting with a Lorentz oscillator model. Moreover, we found that the band gap energy of the samples diminished after thermal treatment.

Silver thin films are widely utilized in plasmonic, electronic, and catalytic devices due to their excellent conductivity, optical properties, and surface activity. However, the nanostructure and performance of Ag films are highly dependent on deposition parameters, particularly during radio-frequency magnetron sputtering (RF-MS). In this study, we systematically investigate the effects of RF power, sputtering time, and substrate type on the growth behavior, crystallinity, and electrical conductivity of Ag films. Optical emission spectroscopy (OES) and Langmuir probe diagnostics were employed to analyze the plasma environment, revealing the evolution of electron temperature and plasma density with varying RF powers. Structural characterizations using XRD, SEM, and AFM demonstrate that higher RF power results in reduced grain size, increased film density, and improved crystallinity, while deposition time influences film thickness and grain coalescence. Substrate material also plays a key role, with Cu substrates promoting better crystallinity due to improved lattice matching. Electrical measurements show that denser films with larger grains exhibit lower sheet resistance. These findings provide a comprehensive understanding of the plasma–film interplay and offer strategic insights for optimizing silver nanofilms in high-performance optoelectronic and catalytic systems.

In this work, (scanning) transmission electron microscopy has been used to study the nanostructure of porous cobalt coatings obtained by magnetron sputtering using helium as process gas. This nanostructure consists of closed pores of different nanometric size (about 4-20 nm) that are distributed all over a nanocrystalline Co matrix and filled with the deposition gas. Spatially resolved electron energy-loss spectroscopy analysis was applied to measure and map, with high lateral resolution, the relevant physical properties (density, pressure and He-K edge shift) of helium trapped inside these individual nanopores, in order to provide new insights about the growth mechanism involved in such systems. In particular, a coefficient of proportionality, C = 0.039 eV nm3, between the blue shift of the He K-edge and the He density has been found. In addition, very high He densities (10-100 at./nm3) and pressures in the gigapascal range (0.05-5.0 GPa) have been measured. The linear dependence of these parameters as a function of the inverse radii obeying to the Laplace-Young law for most of the pores suggests that their formation during the coating's growth takes place in regime of elastic deformation of the Co matrix.

Abstract. In this work, the structural properties of the monocrystalline vanadium pentoxide have been presented. Vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) films were deposited by using a DC reactive magnetron sputtering system at working pressure of 8.5x10-2mbar. The sputtered vanadium atoms were sputtered and oxidized in presence O2:Ar gas mixture by (5/95,10/90,15/85,20/80,30/70,50/50). Employment of magnetron results in the formation of V2O5 in the final samples according to the XRD analysis, increase the roughness and hence surface area of the produced V2O5nanostructures. The results of X-rays are shown to us, the deposited films were formed by nanoparticles with average grain size in the range of (52.11nm to 98.03) nm and roughness Ave (nm) in the range of (1.04nm to 8.88nm). The deposited films are identified to be polycrystalline nature with a cubic structure along ((001), (111)) and ((200)) orientation also MonoV2O5, Cub VO were found as deposited. The texture of the films was observed using SEM and AFM, it was observed that the grain size was increased with increased the O2 percentage. These improvements in the structural properties of the produced vanadium pentoxide make these nanostructures good candidates for specific applications, such as photo detectors, solar cells, electro chromic smart window and gas sensor.

Zinc sulfide (ZnS) thin films were deposited on glass substrate with different thickness by radiofrequency (RF) magnetron sputtering technique, and deals with effect of thickness on the optical and structural properties. The structure, surface morphology and optical properties are investigated by x-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic forces microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscopy, and UV-visible spectrophotometer.  The result of XRD show that ZnS thin film exhibited cubic structure with strong peaks at (111) as highly preferential orientation. The maximum particle size of films was found to be 14.4 at thickness 868nm. SEM image show that the shape of grain is like spherical. The result of AFM shows that the surface roughness decrease with increasing in film thickness from (6.19 to 1.45)nm. The result of UV-visible suggests that transmittance increasing with increases in film thickness, the value maximum of ZnS transmission was 87.82%  at thickness 868nm, can be very much useful in the field of solar cell and optical sensor .   http://dx.doi.org/10.25130/tjps.24.2019.113

Abstract: In this paper, titanium dioxide nanostructured thin films TiO2 were deposited on unheated glass substrates by applying the DC reactive magnetron sputtering method. Three TiO2 films were deposited using argon sputtering gas with different oxygen ratios: 10%, 25%, and 50%. The resulting films had thicknesses of 200, 184, and 140 nm, respectively. The structural, morphological, optical, and electrical properties of deposited thin films were studied. X-ray diffraction (XRD) data showed that the samples exhibited an amorphous phase. It was found from atomic force microscopy (AFM) that the deposited thin films had a nanostructure, and the heights of their nanograins were 16, 24, and 30 nm, respectively. It was observed from the root-mean-square height RMS values that the films had low roughness. The UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopy showed that the films become more transparent with the increase in oxygen content. The direct band gap ranged between 3.68 and 3.88 eV, while the indirect band gap ranged from 3.3 to 3.66 eV. The highest intensity photoluminescence emission was obtained for the film deposited at 50% O2. In addition, the impedance spectroscopy showed that the films’ resistance did not change with changing oxygen content. Keywords: Magnetron sputtering, Titanium dioxide, X-ray diffraction, Absorption spectra, Atomic Force Microscopy, Photoluminescence, Impedance.

Nickel oxide (NiO) nanostructure was successfully prepared via reactive DC magnetron sputtering on the soda-lima glass substrate, which can be used for various applications. Xray diffraction (XRD) investigations were used to evaluate NiO with two annealing durations. The results revealed that the deposited films had a cubic structure and polycrystalline nanoparticles. A significant polycrystalline structure could be seen in the sputtered films as a diffraction peak oriented toward NiO (200). Field-emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM) analysis identified the surface morphology of NiO nanoparticles prepared at two different annealing times with the two average sizes (24 and 32 nm) respectively. The samples' roughness was assessed using atomic force microscopy (AFM). Increased annealing time was shown to result in a decrease in grain size. The energy band gap (Eg) expanded with increasing annealing time, according to UV-visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis). FTIR spectroscopy was used to determine the functional groups of NiO nanoparticles and their bonding nature. The results indicate that optical characterizations are more sensitive to the annealing period.

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Effect of a radio-frequency magnetron sputtering system parameters on the process of thin films structure formation was analyzed. Dependence of energy delivered to the growing film by bombarding ions on the magnetron parameters and configuration was studied. Main parameters determining this energy are plasma potential, substrate ion current density, substrate bias and deposition rate. It was shown, that energetic conditions sufficiently influence on the structure formation of textured coatings. The influence of discharge gap distance and substrate bias potential on formation of hafnium diboride films structure was studied.

Zirconium-based metallic glass films are promising materials for nanoelectronic and biomedical applications, but their mechanical behavior under different conditions is not well understood. This study investigates the effects of radio frequency (RF) power and test temperature on the nanostructure, morphology, and creep behavior of Zr55Cu30Al10Ni5 metallic glass films prepared by RF magnetron sputtering. The films were characterized by X-ray diffraction and microscopy, and their mechanical properties were measured by a bulge test system. The results show that the films were amorphous and exhibited a transition from noncolumnar to columnar morphology as the RF power increased from 75 W to 125 W. The columnar morphology reduced the creep resistance, Young’s modulus, residual stress, and hardness of the films. The creep behavior of the films was also influenced by the test temperature, with higher temperature leading to higher creep strain and lower creep stress. The findings of this study provide insights into the optimization of the sputtering parameters and the design of zirconium-based metallic glass films for various applications.

The morphology and void connectivity of thin films grown by a magnetron sputtering deposition technique at oblique geometries were studied in this paper. A well-tested thin film growth model was employed to assess the features of these layers along with experimental data taken from the literature. A strong variation in the film morphology and pore topology was found as a function of the growth conditions, which have been linked to the different collisional transport of sputtered species in the plasma gas. Four different characteristic film morphologies were identified, such as (i) highly dense and compact, (ii) compact with large, tilted mesopores, (iii) nanocolumns separated by large mesopores, and (iv) vertically aligned sponge-like coalescent nanostructures. Attending to the topology and connectivity of the voids in the film, the nanocolumnar morphology was shown to present a high pore volume and area connected with the outside by means of mesopores, with a diameter above 2 nm, while the sponge-like nanostructure presented a high pore volume and area, as well as a dense network connectivity by means of micropores, with a diameter below 2 nm. The obtained results describe the different features of the porous network in these films and explain the different performances as gas or liquid sensors in electrochromic applications or for infiltration with nanoparticles or large molecules.

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Formic acid is an advantageous liquid organic hydrogen carrier. It is relatively nontoxic and can be synthesized by the reaction of CO2 with sustainable hydrogen or by biomass decomposition. As an alternative to more widely studied powdery catalysts, supported Pd-C catalytic thin films with controlled nanostructure and compositions were newly prepared in this work by magnetron sputtering on structured supports and tested for the formic acid decomposition reaction. A two-magnetron configuration (carbon and tailored Pd-C targets) was used to achieve a reduction in Pd consumption and high catalyst surface roughness and dispersion by increasing the carbon content. Activity and durability tests were carried out for the gas phase formic acid decomposition reaction on SiC foam monoliths coated with the Pd-C films and the effects of column width, surface roughness and thermal pre-reduction time were investigated. Activity of 5.04 molH2·gPd−1·h−1 and 92% selectivity to the dehydrogenation reaction were achieved at 300 °C for the catalyst with a lower column width and higher carbon content and surface roughness. It was also found that deactivation occurs when Pd is sintered due to the elimination of carbon and/or the segregation and agglomeration of Pd upon cycling. Magnetron sputtering deposition appears as a promising and scalable route for the one-step preparation of Pd-C catalytic films by overcoming the different deposition characteristics of Pd and C with an appropriate experimental design.

Pure MoS2 coatings are easily affected by oxygen and water vapor to form MoO3 and H2SO4 which cause a higher friction coefficient and shorter service life. In this work, five kinds of MoS2/Ti–MoS2/Si multilayer nanocomposite coatings have been deposited by using unbalanced magnetron sputtering with different modulation period ratios. The tribological tests and nano-indentation experiments have been carried out in order to study the tribological and mechanical properties of the multilayer nanocomposite coating. The results show that the hardness and internal stress of the multilayer nanocomposite coatings are superior to those of the pure MoS2 coating. The polycrystalline columnar structures are effectively inhibited and the coating densification increases due to the multilayer nanostructure and the doped elements of Ti and Si. The nanocomposite coating with a modulation period ratio of 100 : 100 shows the lowest friction coefficient and wear rate. The multilayer nanocomposite coatings exhibit excellent tribological property under a heavy constant load. Interfaces in multilayer nanostructure coating is able to hinder the dislocations motion and the crack propagation. The doped elements of Ti and Si with nano-multilayer structure enhances the mechanical and tribological properties of MoS2 coating. This study provides guidelines for optimizing the mechanical and tribological properties of MoS2 coating.

Possessing a large surface-to-volume ratio is significant to the sensitive gas detection of semiconductor nanostructures. Here, we propose a fast-response ammonia gas sensor based on porous nanostructured zinc oxide (ZnO) film, which is fabricated through physical vapor deposition and subsequent thermal annealing. In general, an extremely thin silver (Ag) layer (1, 3, 5 nm) and a 100 nm ZnO film are sequentially deposited on the SiO2/Si substrate by a magnetron sputtering method. The porous nanostructure of ZnO film is formed after thermal annealing contributed by the diffusion of Ag among ZnO crystal grains and the expansion of the ZnO film. Different thicknesses of the Ag layer help the formation of different sizes and quantities of hollows uniformly distributed in the ZnO film, which is demonstrated to hold superior gas sensing abilities than the compact ZnO film. The responses of the different porous ZnO films were also investigated in the ammonia concentration range of 10 to 300 ppm. Experimental results demonstrate that the ZnO/Ag(3 nm) sensor possesses a good electrical resistance variation of 85.74% after exposing the sample to 300 ppm ammonia gas for 310 s. Interestingly, a fast response of 61.18% in 60 s for 300 ppm ammonia gas has been achieved from the ZnO/Ag(5 nm) sensor, which costs only 6 s for the response increase to 10%. Therefore, this controllable, porous, nanostructured ZnO film maintaining a sensitive gas response, fabricated by the physical deposition approach, will be of great interest to the gas-sensing community.

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This work addresses the need for precise control of thin film sputtering processes to enable thin film material tailoring on the example of zinc tin nitride (ZTN) thin films deposited via microwave plasma-assisted high power reactive magnetron sputtering (MAR-HiPIMS). The applied in situ diagnostic techniques (Langmuir probe and energy-resolved time-of-flight mass spectrometry) supported monitoring changes in the deposition environment with respect to microwave (MW) power. During MAR-HiPIMS, the presence of nitride ions in the gas phase (ZnN+, ZnN2+, SnN+, SnN2+) was detected. This indicates that the MW plasma facilitated their production, as opposed to pure R-HiPIMS. Additionally, MW plasma caused post-ionisation of sputtered atoms and reduced the overall energy-per-charge range of incoming charged species. By varying the MW power and substrate biasing, films with comparable chemical compositions (approximately Zn0.92Sn1.08N2) but different structures, ranging from polycrystalline to preferentially textured, were successfully produced. The application of density functional theory (DFT) further enabled the relationship between the lattice parameters and the optical properties of ZTN to be explored, where the material’s optical anisotropy nature was determined. It was found that despite considerable differences in crystallinity, the changes induced in the lattice parameters were subangstrom, causing only minor changes in the final optical properties of ZTN.

The photocatalytic activity (PA) by electrochromic (EC) enhancement of single and multilayer films of TiO2, WO3, TiO2/WO3, and WO3/TiO2 was investigated. All films were deposited from metal on an ITO glass substrate using direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering via an oblique angle deposition (OAD) technique at 85°. Subsequently, a thermal oxidation (TO) process at 500℃ was applied for the samples to form metal oxide films. The morphology, elemental composition, crystal structure, and optical properties were studied by using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffractometry (XRD), and UV-vis spectroscopy, respectively. The photocatalytic properties were investigated by showing the degradation rate of methylene blue (MB) solution as an organic pollutant that was examined under ultraviolet irradiation of 300 µW∙cm‒2. The film samples were investigated by comparing the pre-color and colored states that were achieved through the EC process. The EC properties of WO3 led to increased charge insertion on the film surface. This observation was further supported by cyclic voltammetry (CV) testing, which revealed a higher current density for the thin film samples. The photodegradation results showed that the samples in the colored state exhibited a significantly higher degradation rate of MB compared to the pre-color state.  

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Silicon carbide (SiC) is widely used in high-temperature, high-frequency and high-power electronic devices due to its wide band gap, high breakdown electric field and high electron saturation rate. However, due to the inherent chemical inertness of SiC, wet etching processing of SiC nanostructure arrays is still a challenging topic. In this work, nanoscale triangular mask arrays were processed by self-assembled PS nanospheres, and triangular nanostructure arrays were fabricated on 4H-SiC substrates by UV light enhanced metal-assisted chemical etching (UV-MACE). By investigating the morphological evolution of the bilayer PS nanospheres under different plasma etching time, two different triangular mask arrays with lengths of 370 nm and 420 nm were obtained after metals deposition by magnetron sputtering. The SiC triangular nanopillar arrays and triangular nanopore arrays were fabricated by UV light enhanced metal-assisted chemical etching with double-sided gold deposition, and such triangular nanostructures have potential applications in surface enhanced Raman scattering.

Abstract BaTiO3–CoFe2O4 composite films were prepared on (100) SrTiO3 substrates by using a radio-frequency magnetron co-sputtering method at 750 °C. These films contained highly (001)-oriented crystalline phases of perovskite BaTiO3 and spinel CoFe2O4, which can form a self-assembled nanostructure with BaTiO3 well-dispersed into CoFe2O4 under optimized sputtering conditions. A prominent dielectric percolation behavior was observed in the self-assembled nanocomposite. Compared with pure BaTiO3 films sputtered under similar conditions, the nanocomposite film showed higher dielectric constants and lower dielectric losses together with a dramatically suppressed frequency dispersion. This dielectric percolation phenomenon can be explained by the ‘micro-capacitor’ model, which was supported by measurement results of the electric polarization and leakage current.

The present work deals with structural, mechanical and tribological charaterization of nanostructure of nitrides based films (ZrN, TiN) for cutting tool applications. Coatings are deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering from metallic targets (Ti, Zr and B) on static substrate holders with RF or DC bias. Thermo chemical treatments by plasma nitrided have been held on steel substrates for eventual duplex applications. The influence of plasma parameters (nitrogen partial pressure and substrate bias) on mechanical properties of ZrN an TiN is studied. In order to improve its mechanical properties, bore is then introduced to TiN and ZrN thin films. The fraction of bore into the coatings is then increased in order to achieve the formation of ZrBN and TiBN nanocomposite. Chemical, mechanical, tribological and structural properties are studied as a function of bore content using XPS, FTIR and nano indentation, Scratch tests, XRD, SEM and TEM techniques. C-BN and h-BN phases are detected from 1 at.% of bore by XPS measurements. An increase of the hardness is observed while adding bore to nitrides with two maximum at 5 and 10 at.% of bore. The resistance corrosion is also studied as function of deposition conditions.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of radio frequency (RF) plasma power on the morphology, crystal structure, elemental chemical composition, and optical properties of ZnO nanostructure using a direct current magnetron sputtering technique. This study emphasized that the growth rate and surface morphology of the polycrystalline ZnO were enhanced as the radio frequency (RF) plasma power increased. This can be observed by fixing other parameters such as the growth time, substrate temperature, and chamber partial pressure. The RF plasma power alteration from 150 to 300 W can produce uniform nanograin, spheroid, and nanorods. Additionally, the RF plasma power alteration leads to the alteration in the ZnO nanorod diameter from 14 to 202 nm. It was observed that the XRD intensities are increased at higher plasma powers. This, perhaps, can be inferred from the transformation of the granular microcrystals to the needlelike or platelike large crystals, as already examined using SEM images. This also has an impact on the average crystalline size, which increased from 10 to 40 nm on increasing the RF plasma power. Moreover, the increase of the RF plasma power has an obvious impact upon the optical band-gap energy, which was accordingly decreased from 3.26 to 3.22 eV. Finally, the absorption band edge was shifted to a lower-energy region due to the quantum size effect at the nanorange.

The use of Fe films as multi-element targets in space radiation experiments with high-intensity ultrashort laser pulses requires a surface structure that can enhance the laser energy absorption on target, as well as a low concentration and uniform distribution of light element contaminants within the films. In this paper, (110) preferred orientation nanocrystalline Fe thin films with controlled morphology and composition were grown on (100)-oriented Si substrates by oblique angle RF magnetron sputtering, at room temperature. The evolution of films key-parameters, crucial for space-like radiation experiments with organic material, such as nanostructure, morphology, topography, and elemental composition with varying RF source power, deposition pressure, and target to substrate distance is thoroughly discussed. A selection of complementary techniques was used in order to better understand this interdependence, namely X-ray Diffraction, Atomic Force Microscopy, Scanning and Transmission Electron Microscopy, Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy and Non-Rutherford Backscattering Spectroscopy. The films featured a nanocrystalline, tilted nanocolumn structure, with crystallite size in the (110)-growth direction in the 15–25 nm range, average island size in the 20–50 nm range, and the degree of polycrystallinity determined mainly by the shortest target-to-substrate distance (10 cm) and highest deposition pressure (10−2 mbar Ar). Oxygen concentration (as impurity) into the bulk of the films as low as 1 at. %, with uniform depth distribution, was achieved for the lowest deposition pressures of (1–3) × 10−3 mbar Ar, combined with highest used values for the RF source power of 125–150 W. The results show that the growth process of the Fe thin film is strongly dependent mainly on the deposition pressure, with the film morphology influenced by nucleation and growth kinetics. Due to better control of film topography and uniform distribution of oxygen, such films can be successfully used as free-standing targets for high repetition rate experiments with high power lasers to produce Fe ion beams with a broad energy spectrum.

Nanostructuration and 2D patterning of thin films are common strategies to fabricate biomimetic surfaces and components for microfluidic, microelectronic or photonic applications. This work presents the fundamentals of a surface nanotechnology procedure for laterally tailoring the nanostructure and crystalline structure of thin films that are plasma deposited onto acoustically excited piezoelectric substrates. Using magnetron sputtering as plasma technique and TiO2 as case example, it is demonstrated that the deposited films depict a sub-millimetre 2D pattern that, characterized by large lateral differences in nanostructure, density (up to 50%), thickness, and physical properties between porous and dense zones, reproduces the wave features distribution of the generated acoustic waves (AW). Simulation modelling of the AW propagation and deposition experiments carried out without plasma and under alternative experimental conditions reveal that patterning is not driven by the collision of ad-species with mechanically excited lattice atoms of the substrate, but emerges from their interaction with plasma sheath ions locally accelerated by the AW-induced electrical polarization field developed at the substrate surface and growing film. The possibilities of the AW activation as a general approach for the tailored control of nanostructure, pattern size, and properties of thin films are demonstrated through the systematic variation of deposition conditions and the adjustment of AW operating parameters.

Orthorhombic molybdenum oxide (α-MoO3) nanostructures were deposited on the surface of carbon cloth (CC) as a flexible and high conductive scaffold by reactive RF magnetron sputtering technique. Structure and morphology of the as prepared molybdenum coated carbon cloth (MoO3CC) were thoroughly characterized with field emission scanning electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, energy dispersive x-ray and Raman spectroscopy. Benefiting from high surface area and superior conductivity of CC as well as electrocatalytic activity of α-MoO3 nanostructures, an electrochemical sensor was fabricated. The electrochemical behavior of this new sensor toward determination of dopamine was studied in detail by cyclic voltammetry, amperometry (AM) and square wave voltammetry (SWV). Results reported here reveal that using SWV not only enhances the sensitivity of sensors to dopamine by more than 14 times compared to AM, but also offers higher linear dynamic range (1–700 μM compared to 5–550 μM). Limit of detection, for signal to noise ratio 3, was calculated to be 0.48 μM. Applicability of the proposed sensor for measurement of dopamine in real samples, like urine and pharmaceutical formulation, was also evaluated that concluded to satisfactory results.