Corrosion of Ultrathin Iron Layers and Titanium Nitride Coated Iron

Abstract

In this paper results are presented on the corrosion resistance against SO2-polluted atmospheres of ultrathin Fe layers (<2.5 nm) deposited on SiO2/Si wafers by two methods: vacuum evaporation and Langmuir–Blodgett (LB) technique. It is shown that the corrosion resistance of the evaporated films is similar to that shown by massive iron while the corrosion resistance of the LB films is remarkably higher. We also show that the corrosion resistance of iron evaporated films can be greatly enhanced by using TiN coatings. Results on the influence of the SO2 concentration, the atmospheric relative humidity and the exposure time on the corrosion behaviour of thin (30 nm) TiN layers deposited onto evaporated Fe films on SiO2/Si wafers are discussed.