Thermal Atomic Layer Deposition of Yttrium Oxide Films and Their Properties in Anticorrosion and Water Repellent Coating Applications

Abstract

The thermal atomic layer deposition (ThALD) of yttrium oxide (Y2O3) was developed using the newly designed, liquid precursor, Y(EtCp)2(iPr2-amd), as the yttrium source in combination with different oxygen sources, such as ozone, water and even molecular oxygen. Saturation was observed for the growth of the Y2O3 films within an ALD window of 300 to 450 °C and a growth per cycle (GPC) up to 1.1 Å. The resulting Y2O3 films possess a smooth and crystalline structure, while avoiding any carbon and nitrogen contamination, as observed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The films showed strong resistance to fluorine-containing plasma, outperforming other resistant materials, such as silicon oxide, silicon nitride and alumina. Interestingly, the hydrophilic character exhibited by the film could be switched to hydrophobic after exposure to air, with water contact angles exceeding 90°. After annealing under N2 flow at 600 °C for 4 min, the hydrophobicity was lost, but proved recoverable after prolonged air exposure or intentional hydrocarbon exposure. The origin of these changes in hydrophobicity was examined.

Metal‐Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition of Aluminum Yttrium Nitride

“…However, the only attempt to grow Y‐containing nitrides by MOCVD relied on using cyclopentadienyl‐based Y precursors (MeCp) 3 Y and (t‐BuCp) 3 Y, with the last one enabling doping levels of Y incorporated in GaN (5.3 × 10 18 cm −3 ). [ 44 ] Actually, several precursors for yttrium are available for atomic layer deposition of yttrium oxide, [ 55 ] with the company Air Liquide Advanced Materials (ALAM) [ 55 ] being one of the leaders in the field. We tested the precursor (EtCp) 2 (iPr‐amd)Y supplied by ALAM in our special MOCVD setup.…”

Yttria-Doped Ceria Surface Modification Layer via Atomic Layer Deposition for Low-Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

“…Thus, CFLs are generally fabricated with PVD (sputtering in particular) [25][26][27]. Atomic layer deposition (ALD), which is one of the finest technologies among the CVD methods, has been adopted to obtain extremely thin and dense films [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. The ALD method can grow films based on a self-limiting reaction, which results in the precise control of the thickness at the atomic scale; this ensures the finest surface modifications for the desired compositions [28][29][30][35][36][37].…”