Substrate effects on formation and hydrogenation of Mg–Ni films

Usually metallic films for metal hydrides research applications are deposited on hard and flat substrates such as silicon, magnesium oxide, fused silica or quartz glass. With the film thickness increases all films during hydrogenation deals with typical problems such as film brittleness and cracking. In this paper we demonstrate that metal Mg–Ni films for hydrogen storage can be successfully deposited on to the flexible low surface energy expanded PTFE substrates. The received results for soft substrates (expanded PTFE) are compared to films being deposited on crystalline silicon substrate with and without plasma pretreatment. It is observed that different interface zone between substrate and film has great affect on both film crystallinity and its reaction with hydrogen. It is also demonstrated that modifying surface of the substrate might have affect on film microstructure before and after hydrogenation.