Preparation of Zr1−x AlxO2 by annealing of ZrOx/Al thin films in the air atmosphere

Preparation of Zr1−xAlxO2 by annealing of ZrOx/Al thin layers in the reactive medium is presented in this work. At first ZrOx thin films were deposited by reactive cathodic arc evaporation. Cathodic arc evaporation is the most versatile PVD coating technology. The process uses arc evaporation to create highly ionized plasma. It allows the “droplets” to escape into the coating under special condition in the chamber. After complete analysis of the process of arc deposition, ZrOx thin films with thickness of ∼600 nm were deposited on Al2O3 and quartz substrates. Using vaporization on ZrOx thin films 10% mol of Al was deposited and these ZrOx/Al thin films were annealed at 500–900 °C in the air medium. The Zr0.9Al0.1O2 thin films with nanocrystallite and two phases, monoclinic and cubic, were produced using the above-mentioned technique. The structure and optical properties of films were investigated by XRD, ellipsometry, photospectometry, respectively.