The Study of the Microstructure and Characterization of theAluminum Oxide Deposited on PES Substrate by RadioFrequency Magnetron Reactive Sputtering

Abstract\nIn this study, AlOx thin films were deposited on polyethersulfone (PES) by means of reactive RF magnetron sputtering equipped with a pure Al target in Ar/N2 atmosphere, under fixed working pressure, substrate bias and different oxygen flow, deposition time and RF power, in order to observe the influence of different working conditions to Al2O3 films.precisely adjusting the RF power (200 W、250 W、300 W、350 W、400 W) and oxygen flow rate (1 sccm、3 sccm、5 sccm、7 sccm), as well as controlling the sputtering time, a fixed and uniform thickness of AlOx films would be created. According to the results of the experiments, the minimum WVTR values of the films was 13.8 g/m2-day, under sputtering power 400 W and oxygen flow 7 sccm. Under the sputtering power of 400 W, it''s revealed that the aluminum oxide films of the oxygen flow rate of 1 sccm are denser than that of the flow rate of 7 sccm. The voids of the thin films are thought to be related to oxygen plasma etching and atomic self-shadowing effect. The more the deposition time and oxygen flow increases, the less the optical transmittance of films decreases.