Facile preparation and energetic characteristics of core-shell Al/CuO metastable intermolecular composite thin film on a silicon substrate

Nanostructured energetic composites, in which the oxidizing component and the reducing component are uniformly distributed and intimately contacted, are attracting much attention in recent years. In this study, a new method is developed to facilely prepare CuO nanotubes and accordingly the core-shell structured Al/CuO metastable intermolecular composite (MIC) thin film on a silicon substrate. Cr and Cu thin films are sputter-deposited onto the silicon substrate sequentially, where Cr thin film functions as the adhesion layer. The silicon substrate is then immersed in a mixture of NaOH and (NH4)(2)S2O8 to form one-dimensional Cu(OH)(2) nanostructures, which are then dehydrated at 180 degrees C to form CuO nanotubes. Nano Al is then sputter-deposited around CuO to obtain core-shell Al/CuO MIC. The morphological, structural and compositional information of the core-shell Al/CuO MIC is characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The energy-release characteristics of core-shell Al/CuO MIC are studied by differential scanning calorimetry and differential thermal analysis, and the preliminary laser ignition test is conducted by using pulsed Nd: YAG laser. The results show that the prepared Al/CuO MIC possesses a fine core-shell structure and is highly exothermic. The preparation method developed is suitable for the facile synthesis of non-cracking core-shell Al/CuO MIC thin film that can be integrated with microelectromechanical systems to realize functional energetic chips. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.