Synthesis of Ti-based metallic glass thin film in high vacuum pressure on 316 L stainless steel

Abstract

Surface modification of ordinary alloys by advanced coating provides a means to maintain the bulk properties of the alloy and thereby its utility in sensitive applications. In this paper, we describe the deposition of a Ti-based metallic glass thin film on 316L stainless steel using a high vacuum pulse laser deposition (HVPLD) process without a bulk metallic glass (MG) source as target. A predominant amorphous single phase film was obtained in the proper chemical composition (Ti57Cu28{Zr0.95–Hf0.05}5Si10) by controlling several process parameters, including the target rotation speed and vacuum pressure. Our HPLD configuration entailed high vacuum pressure (less than 13.3×10−6Pa), a target rotation speed in the range of 1500–2000rotation per minute (rpm) and a substrate temperature between 450 and 600°C. These parameters provide excellent control over the amorphicity of the film matrix. Our work opens up interesting opportunities to improve the poor surface properties of metallic alloys specially biometallic alloys by depositing a thin film of Ti-based MG on their surface, which can also overcome the problem of MG bulk form production as we just deposited a thin film of MG.