Effect of chemical treatment on surface characteristics of sputter deposited Ti-rich NiTi shape memory alloy thin-films

Graphical abstract: FTIR spectra recorded for sputter deposited (a) untreated and (b) chemically treated NiTi SMA thin-films. - Highlights: • The effect of chemical treatment on surface properties of NiTi films demonstrated. • Chemically treated films offer strong ability to form protective TiO2 layer. • TiO2 layer formation offer great application prospects in biomedical fields. - Abstract: NiTi thin-films were deposited by DC magnetron sputtering from single alloy target (Ni/Ti:45/55 at.%). The rate of deposition and thickness of sputter deposited films were maintained to ∼35 nm min−1 and 4 μm respectively. A set of sputter deposited NiTi films were selected for specific chemical treatment with the solution comprising of de-ionized water, HF and HNO3 respectively. The influence of chemical treatment on surface characteristics of NiTi films before and after chemical treatment was investigated for their structure, micro-structure and composition using different analytical techniques. Prior to chemical treatment, the composition of NiTi films using energy dispersive X-ray dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), were found to be 51.8 atomic percent of Ti and 48.2 atomic percent of Ni. The structure and morphology of these films were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). XRD investigations, demonstrated the presence of dominant Austenite (1 1 0) phase along with Martensite phase, for untreated NiTi films whereas some additional diffraction peaks viz. (1 0 0), (1 0 1), and (2 0 0) corresponding to Rutile and Anatase phase of Titanium dioxide (TiO2) along with parent Austenite (1 1 0) phase were observed for chemically treated NiTi films. FTIR studies, it can be concluded that chemically treated films have higher tendency to form metal oxide/hydroxide than the untreated NiTi films. XPS investigations, demonstrated the presence of Ni-free surface and formation of a protective metal oxide (TiO2) layer on the surface of the films, in both the cases. The extent of the formation of surface oxide layer onto the surface of NiTi films has enhanced after chemical treatment