Properties of titanium oxide synthesized by pulsed metal vacuum arc deposition

In this work, TiO2 films were deposited on Ti6Al4V and silicon(100) substrates using pulsed metal vacuum arc deposition. The as-deposited samples were annealed at 800 degreesC for 30 min at a pressure of 8.0X10(-4) Pa. The film composition was determined by XPS, RBS and the surface morphology were studied by AFM. XRD shows that the as-deposited films may consist of anatase. brookite or rutile TiO2. After annealing at 800 degreesC for 30 min at a pressure of 8.0 X 10(-4) Pa, the films become rutile TiO2(110)(101)(200)(211)(002) and the preferred orientation changes from (110) to (101) and (002) at high oxygen pressure. Thus, it can be concluded that the growth on the (002) and (101) plane parallel to the surface becomes more dominant in samples deposited at higher oxygen partial pressures when annealed at 800 degreesC for 30 min. XRD and contact mode AFM disclose that the as-deposited films are quite dense and composed of grains 80-100 nm in size, whereas the annealed films have larger grains exceeding 400 nm. The RBS results show that O/Ti ratio of the titanium oxide deposited at different oxygen pressure become nearly the same after annealing. The results suggest that all of the 'low valence' titanium oxide phases in the film have been oxidized to be rutile TiO2, but the crystalline orientation of the annealed films is different. The wear resistance of titanium oxide increased approximately 10-fold compared with Ti6Al4V (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.