Abstract
The appearance of thin film metallic glasses (TFMGs) is gaining increasing interest because of their unique mechanical and anticorrosion properties and potential engineering applications. In this study, Cu–Zr–Al ternary thin film metallic glasses were fabricated by using DC magnetron sputtering equipment with various target powers. The evolution of the structure was systematically investigated by grazing incidence X-ray diffractometer, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. The deposition rate increases with the increasing of applied target power. The as-deposited thin films show an amorphous structure. The compositional fluctuations on the nanometer scale indicate the presence of two Cu- and Zr-rich amorphous phases. The electrochemical corrosion measurements indicated that Cu–Zr–Al thin film metallic glasses had good corrosion resistance in the sulfuric acid solution. Nanoindentation results showed that the mechanical deformation was found to be homogenous and reproducible with a high value range for the hardness and modulus.
Highlights
Metallic glasses are promising materials with wide-ranging applications because of their unique properties, including high strength and toughness, large elastic limits, good soft magnetic, and brilliant corrosion resistance
In this work, we aim to study the possibility of fabricating a new Cu–Zr–Al ternary system thin film metallic glasses with various compositions and thicknesses deposited by direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering to investigate their microstructure and properties
The results indicate that the thin film metallic glasses can be precisely regulated by the appropriate target power
Summary
Metallic glasses are promising materials with wide-ranging applications because of their unique properties, including high strength and toughness, large elastic limits, good soft magnetic, and brilliant corrosion resistance. These features are attributed to the lack of long-range order atomic structure and non-grain boundary effect [1,2,3,4]. Most metallic glass material exhibits one metallic glass phase, whereas some systems, such as Zr-Ti-Cu-Ni-Be or (Zr, La) -Al-Cu-Ni bulk metallic glass (BMG) systems, exhibit two metallic glass phases due to the phase separation phenomenon [13,14] The microstructure of these two metallic glass phases provides an opportunity for developing new materials with unique properties.
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