Fabrication, Corrosion, and Mechanical Properties of Magnetron Sputtered Cu-Zr-Al Metallic Glass Thin Film

The appearance of thin film metallic glasses (TFMGs) is gaining increasing interest because of their unique mechanical and anticorrosion properties and potential engineering applications. In this study, Cu-Zr-Al ternary thin film metallic glasses were fabricated by using DC magnetron sputtering equipment with various target powers. The evolution of the structure was systematically investigated by grazing incidence X-ray diffractometer, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. The deposition rate increases with the increasing of applied target power. The as-deposited thin films show an amorphous structure. The compositional fluctuations on the nanometer scale indicate the presence of two Cu- and Zr-rich amorphous phases. The electrochemical corrosion measurements indicated that Cu-Zr-Al thin film metallic glasses had good corrosion resistance in the sulfuric acid solution. Nanoindentation results showed that the mechanical deformation was found to be homogenous and reproducible with a high value range for the hardness and modulus.