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Description
The stabilization of tetragonal zirconium dioxide (zirconia) by doping at room temperature has already been carried out with dopant materials like Y or Mg. In the present work it was investigated if stabilization is possible with alternative dopants like Al and Cu. The films were produced with a dual cathode magnetron sputtering device. Because it is expected that the stabilization depends on the dopant concentration, the Zr coatings were produced with a dopant gradient. So it was possible to investigate many different compositions with only few samples. This dopant gradient could be produced with a modification of the substrate holder in the sputtering chamber where a small wall partially shadows the vapor beam of the do-pant. After production of the ZrAl and ZrCu samples, first their chemical composition was determined by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy in a scanning electron microscope. Then they were treated with oxygen plasma. Depth profiles were recorded by Auger electron spectroscopy to investigate the progress of the oxidation. For crystallographic analysis X-ray diffraction was used. The surface morphology was measured with an atomic force mi-croscope.
The results show that the stabilization worked successfully with Cu while for Al no for-mation of the tetragonal phase was observed. In addition the results show that oxygen treat-ment time and power could be important parameters for the formation of tetragonal zirconia.
