Fabrication and characterisation of rutile based hybrid thin films

Abstract

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) with a rutile structure is known for its useful physical, chemical, mechanical and biomedical properties. Increasing efforts have been made to fabricate this material in the form of thin films for various applications, like chemical catalysts, optical devices and electromagnetic devices. More recently, it has been discovered that rutile has good biocompatibility and is a potential friction-reducing and wear resistant material, and thus it has a great potential for applications in human implants, medical devices and other tribological applications. In the present work, efforts have been made to produce protective rutile-TiO2 films. This has been achieved by three routes: 1) thermal oxidation of bulk titanium 2) thermal oxidation of titanium film and 3) sputter deposition of rutile-TiO2 with the aid of Ti underlayers. In order to understand the thermal oxidation mechanism and kinetics, a systematic study was carried out on bulk titanium. The effect of cooling rate on the adhesion of the oxide layer on titanium has been investigated.