Sialons are ceramics possessing chemical inertness, good thermal shock resistance, and excellent mechanical properties that are retained up to high temperatures. These properties mean sialon systems have found considerable applications in engineering.
Sialons are almost never found as natural minerals and sialon powders must be synthesized. They are commonly synthesized by sintering or a carbothermal reduction process. This study looks at using reactive dc magnetron sputtering to produce Sialon coatings.
The work, published in AZojomo, by Ramón Álvaro Vargas-Ortiz and Francisco Javier Espinoza-Beltrán from Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN), studies changes in structure and chemical composition of coatings produced using variations of the dc magnetron sputtering technique.
The alterations made were oxygen flux, nitrogen flux and substrate bias potential. The researchers found they were able to produce coatings that ranged from pure alumina, through AlN to (Si,Al)O and (Si,Al)(O,N).
This research opens up a whole range of possibilities for using Sialons in engineering practice as coatings for high temperature and high wear applications.
The article is available to view at http://www.azom.com/Details.asp?ArticleID=3091
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