Improvement of Thermal Stability of ZrB2/Si3N4 Coatings as High-Temperature Solar Selective Absorbers

Abstract

ZrB2 thin films were prepared by DC magnetron sputtering technique. The microstructure, thermal stability and optical properties of thin films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and spectrophotometer. The compactness of ZrB2 thin films was studied to improve the thermal stability by optimizing the deposition parameters. The compactness and thermal stability of the coatings were improved with the increase of substrate temperature. However, these properties of the coatings were enhanced firstly and then weakened with the increase of substrate bias voltage. The selectivity of sample deposited at high substrate temperature and suitable bias voltage degraded slightly after annealing at 500 °C/100 h in air. This provided a new way to improve the thermal stability of high-temperature solar selective absorber.