Experimental and Modeling Study of the Fabrication of Mg Nano-Sculpted Films by Magnetron Sputtering Combined with Glancing Angle Deposition

Abstract

Today, Mg is foreseen as one of the most promising materials for hydrogen storage when prepared as nano-objects. In this context, we have studied the fabrication of Mg nano-sculpted thin films by magnetron sputtering deposition in glancing angle configuration. It is demonstrated that the microstructure of the material is controllable by tuning important deposition parameters such as the tilt angle or the deposition pressure which both strongly affect the shadowing effect during deposition. As an example, the angle formed by the column and the substrate and the intercolumnar space varies between ~20° to ~50° and ~45 to ~120 nm, respectively, when increasing the tilt angle from 60° to 90°. These observations are highlighted by modeling the growth of the material using kinetic Monte Carlo methods which highlights the role of surface diffusion during the synthesis of the coating. This work is a first step towards the development of an air-stable material for hydrogen storage.