Oxidation behaviour of stainless steel-Al coatings produced by co-sputtering and reactive sputtering

Abstract

Unbalanced magnetron sputter deposition (UMSD) was employed to produce thin alloy coatings for high temperature application. The coatings consist of 310S stainless steel and Al. Two methods have been used to deposit the coatings. One is the conventional co-sputtering with 310S steel and Al targets in argon, and the other is co-sputtering with oxygen introduced into the system, in which a part of Al was oxidized to alumina. SEM and XRD results showed different microstructures of the coatings obtained by using these two methods, resulting in different oxidation behaviour. While these two coatings formed protective oxide scales during oxidation, breakaway oxidation took place on the uncoated stainless steel samples.