The effect of intense plasma pulse pre-treatment on wettability in ceramic–copper system

The aim of the present work was to improve the wettability of ceramics such as pyrolytic graphite, glassy carbon, carbon–carbon composite and silicon carbide with liquid copper using three different processes. rst process consists in applying a high intensity plasma pulse (HIPP) in deposition by pulse erosion (DPE) mode to alloy a thin (nm scale) layer of Ti into the substrate. In the second process a thicker (μm scale) layer of Ti is deposited by ArcPVD method. The third process is a sequential combination of the above processes. s were characterized by electron microscopy, X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction, macroscopic photography and sessile drop tests. st results were achieved for the third process. For 70% of the tests the contact angle between Ti layer and Cu droplets was in the range 20–70°.