Improving bonding strength between Ni/Cu/Ag coatings and MgTiO3 ceramic resonator by alumina thin-film grown by atomic layer deposition

A layer of nano-sized alumina thin-film was grown on MgTiO3 based ceramic resonator using atomic layer deposition (ALD) to improve the bonding between resonator and electroless plated and/or electroplated metal coatings. The hydroxylation of resonator surface ensures the strong bonding between alumina film and ceramic substrate, indicating by the bonding score to 10 from 0. However, it will not result in the degradation of the insertion loss of metalized resonators. The signal insertion loss of metalized ceramic resonator with alumina thinfilm intermediate layer is significantly lower than that of resonators treated by traditional HF solution corrosion and/or laser scanning to achieve strong bonding between resonator and metalized coatings. It could be promising to metalize ceramic resonators with highly complex intricate geometric shape.

Automated summary

A layer of nano-sized alumina thin-film was grown on MgTiO3 based ceramic resonator using atomic layer deposition (ALD) to improve the bonding between resonator and metal coatings. The hydroxylation of resonator surface ensures strong bonding between alumina film and ceramic substrate, resulting in a bonding score of 10. The metalized ceramic resonator with alumina thin-film intermediate layer has significantly lower signal insertion loss compared to resonators treated by traditional methods.