Corrosion behavior of aluminum doped diamond-like carbon thin films in NaCl aqueous solution

N W Khun; E Liu

doi:10.1166/jnn.2010.1682

Corrosion behavior of aluminum doped diamond-like carbon thin films in NaCl aqueous solution

J Nanosci Nanotechnol. 2010 Jul;10(7):4767-72. doi: 10.1166/jnn.2010.1682.

Authors

N W Khun¹, E Liu

Affiliation

¹ School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore.

PMID: 21128496
DOI: 10.1166/jnn.2010.1682

Abstract

Aluminum doped diamond-like carbon (DLC:Al) thin films were deposited on n-Si(100) substrates by co-sputtering a graphite target under a fixed DC power (650 W) and an aluminum target under varying DC power (10-90 W) at room temperature. The structure, adhesion strength and surface morphology of the DLC:Al films were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), micro-scratch testing and atomic force microscopy (AFM), respectively. The corrosion performance of the DLC:Al films was investigated by means of potentiodynamic polarization testing in a 0.6 M NaCl aqueous solution. The results showed that the polarization resistance of the DLC:Al films increased from about 18 to 30.7 k(omega) though the corrosion potentials of the films shifted to more negative values with increased Al content in the films.