Compositional library of Ti-Nb-Zr ternary alloy thin films

Full text: Titanium and its alloys have been widely employed as biomedical devices, in particular, the Ti-based alloys containing Nb and Zr as alloying elements have been investigated as biomaterials due to fact that these three metallic elements do not cause harm to the human body. However, a disadvantage of employing Tibase alloys is that they are more expensive than the AISI 316L stainless steel, which is the most used alloy for implants. Thus, an economical option would be to use a thin film of Ti-Nb-Zr with adequate composition and thickness [1]. Combinatorial strategies allow for the production and characterization of many alloys simultaneously. Magnetron sputtering has been used to generate compositional libraries for ternary thin films [2,3]. The main aim of this work was the production of Ti-Nb-Zr ternary alloy thin films co-deposited by magnetron sputtering on a Si (100) substrate and targets were positioned in a triangular configuration below the Si substrate. The composition gradient was formed over all the substrate area, and a compositional library was created. The spectroscopic, diffractometric, and microscopic analyses were carried out by using EDS, XPS, XRD, SEM, AFM and TEM. The compositions (in atomic percentage) were measured by EDS for several individual alloys, and range from 26.4% to 76.4% for Ti, 8.6% to 65.7% for Nb, and 5.7% to 38.0% for Zr. References [1] D.A. Tallarico et al., Mater. Sci. Eng. C, 43, 45-49, 2014; [2] Y. Li et al., ACS Comb. Sci., 18, 630-637, 2016; [3] S. Ding et al., J. Appl. Phys., 111, 114901 (6pp), 2012. (author)