Deposition of Al2O3 coatings in Ar-O2 low-pressure discharge plasma under a high dissociation degree of O2

Abstract

Abstract The deposition of Al2O3 coating with a corundum structure was done by anodic evaporation in a low-pressure arc with a self-heated hollow cathode. The conditions were created for increasing the energy of plasma electrons and a corresponding increase in the frequency of O2 dissociation by contraction of the discharge in the anode region. The discharge was maintained in a combined mode with a constant current (70 – 100 A), on which current pulses (100 μs, 1 kHz) with adjustable amplitude (up to 220 A) were superimposed. This mode ensured a change in the degree of O2 dissociation in the range of 0.3 – 0.5 at constant average discharge current and Al evaporation rate. It is shown that an increase in the degree of O2 dissociation leads to an increase in the rate of coating deposition by a factor of 1.3 and promotion of the preferred (300) orientation of crystallites. The effect is due to the features of the adsorption of molecular and atomic oxygen on the Al2O3.