Atmospheric pressure glow discharge (APGD) plasma CVD was used to deposit thin films of titania at 200 °C using two different precursors. The resulting films were characterised using techniques including XPS, RBS and XRD. It was established that annealing at temperatures as low as 275 °C produced crystalline films that were photocatalytically active. When annealed at 300 °C, the photoactivity was greater than that of a commercially available "self-cleaning" titania film. The effects of the different precursors, annealing times and temperatures on the crystallinity and photoactivity are discussed. This thesis also describes first reported deposition of aluminium oxide thin films by APGD, plasma-enhanced CVD. This approach allows deposition at substantially lower substrate temperatures than normally used in atmospheric pressure based processing. The films are analysed by SEM, XPS, RBS, XRD, and optical properties. It is demonstrated that the APGD approach yields films which are essentially smooth, conformal and free from pinholes or other imperfections. Further novel work was undertaken exploring the deposition of composite metal/ metal oxide thin films using APGD CVD. The described approach employs a parallel- plate dielectric barrier configuration, and the deposition of such materials is discussed with respect to their influence on discharge conditions. Controlled and variable composition films were produced based on aluminium which showed metallic-like reflection (up to 60% visible), and were conductive (~1 O per square). The films were analysed by RBS, SEM, AFM and optical spectroscopy. This new class of APGD-CVD derived thin film material, when combined with the associated low thermal load and attractions for industrial scaling, offers significant potential for new applications. The studies resulted in three full papers, and four posters.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:517566 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Hodgkinson, John L. |
| Publisher | University of Salford |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://usir.salford.ac.uk/26717/ |
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