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Titanium nitrides have good tribo-mechanical and biomedical properties. They are employed to harden and protect cutting and sliding surfaces for industrial purpose and as a non-toxic outer-surface for bio-medical applications. In this study, pure titanium was nitrided using RF plasma technique. The microstructural, mechanical, tribological, electrochemical and biomedical properties of nitrided titanium were investigated. The X-ray diffraction demonstrates the formation of ε-Ti 2 N and the cubic δ-TiN phases after plasma nitriding. The microhardness of the nitride samples increases as the plasma-processing power increases up to 1300 HV 0.1 . That represents approximately 7-fold increment in the microhardness in comparison with the untreated titanium. High nitriding rate of 0.17 μm 2 /s was recorded for the sample that was treated at 650 W. The wear and corrosion resistance are improved after plasma nitriding. Moreover, the friction coefficient is reduced from nearly 0.75 for the untreated titanium to 0.25 for the nitride one. An enhancement in the biocompatibility of the nitrided titanium has been achieved. The number of grown mesenchymal stem cells was higher for nitrided substrates compared to that of the untreated titanium. The improved tribo-mechanical and electrochemical performance of the nitrided titanium can be attributed to the formation of super-hard titanium nitrided phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Amorphous carbon nitride thin films were deposited on polymer substrates using radio frequency (rf) plasma in a mixture of nitrogen (N2) and acetylene (C2H2) gasses. The samples were prepared at different rf plasma power (350, 400, 450, 500, and 550W), at constant plasma exposure time of 10min, and constant N2/C2H2 ratio of 50%. The crystal structure and surface morphology of the prepared samples were examined using X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy analysis, respectively. The absence of the carbon nitride diffraction peaks confirms the amorphous nature of these films. The root mean square roughness of the films increased from 3.77 to 25.22nm as the power increased from 350 to 550W. The thickness and the deposition rate were found to increase with increasing plasma power. Over the whole studied wavelength range, from 200 to 2500nm, the transmittance decreased with increasing plasma power. A shift in the onset of absorption towards higher wavelengths with increasing plasma power, indicating a decrease in the optical band gap, has been observed. The refractive index values were found to decrease while the extinction coefficient increased with increasing plasma power. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Surface of 304 AISI austenitic stainless steel has been modified using duplex treatment technique of nitriding and carbonitriding. A thick modified nitrided layer, of approximately 20 µm, has been achieved when rf inductively coupled plasma was adjusted at 450 W for processing time of only 10 min. After performing the nitrided layer, the nitrided samples were carbonitrided using the same technique at different acetylene partial pressure ratios ranges from 10% to 70%, the balance was pure nitrogen. Different amount of nitrogen and carbon species are diffused underneath the surface through the nitrided layer during carbonitriding process and are found to be gas composition dependent. The treated samples were characterized by glow discharge optical spectroscopy, X-ray diffractometry, scanning electron microscopy and Vickers microhardness tester. The microstructure of the duplex treated layer indicates the formation of γ́-Fe4N, Fe3C, CrN and nitrogen-expanded austenite (γN). The thickness of the duplex treated layer increases with increasing the acetylene partial pressure ratio. The surface microhardness of duplex treated samples has been found to be gas composition dependent and increased by 1.29 fold in comparison to the nitrided sample. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Adding C2H2 gas to nitrogen gas during r.f. plasma processing has significant influence on the properties of 304 austenitic stainless steel. The elemental depth profiles of the compound layer were investigated by glow discharge optical spectroscopy. Different treatment gas compositions of N2/C2H2 mixtures (0–100% in steps of 10 or 5% in some cases) have been investigated. The total gas pressure during the plasma processing was 8.4×10-2 mbar. The sample temperature was approximately 550 °C with an insignificant variation for different gas compositions. A high rate of diffusion of carbonitriding has been obtained without initial sputter removal of the surface oxide layer, which demonstrates that the surface oxide layer does not play a crucial role during r.f. plasma carburizing and carbonitriding of stainless steel. The nitrogen concentration and the compound layer thickness increase, when 10% of C2H2 is added. With further increase in the C2H2 ratio, they decrease again gradually. The carbon depth profiles for the same samples show lower concentration and opposite tendency with respect to the nitrogen content. X-ray diffraction was used to characterize the microstructure of the compound layers. Fe2N, Fe3N, CrN, nitrogen-expanded austenite (γn) and carbon-expanded austenite (γc) phases are detected. The relative proportions of the phases are critically dependent on the N2/C2H2 ratio. Depending on the N2/C2H2 ratio, the microhardness value increases by a factor between 2 and 6. The carbonitrid layer exhibits a corrosion resistance better than pure nitrided and carburized layers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Graphene Oxide (GO) has attracted strong research interest due to its unique mechanical, thermal, electrical, and magnetic properties. Herein, a simple oxygen plasma process is used as an eco-friendly, novel and effective surface treatment technique to enhance the microstructure, adhesion force, and electrical properties of the GO films. GO films were treated in a plasma oxygen environment at a constant RF power of 300 W and different processing times ranging from 0 to 7 min. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Raman spectroscopy are utilized to examine changes in the type of surface groups and the distribution of bonds energy before and after plasma treatment. Additionally, the effect of RF oxygen plasma treatment on other properties, such as thermal stability, surface roughness, contact angle, work of adhesion, wettability, electrical conductivity, and sheet resistance has been studied. XPS data revealed that RF oxygen plasma treatment reduced the amount of oxygen-containing groups (such as epoxides (O–C O), carbonyls (C–O–C), and carboxyl's (O–C O) from 48.8% for the as - prepared GO film to 33.56% after 5 min of treatment. In addition, the average surface roughness (Ra) increased from ~7.8 of as-prepared GO film to ~8.7 μm, while the work of adhesion improved to reach 134.84 mN/m. However, with increasing plasma processing time up to 7 min, the thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) of the treated GO film showed a weight loss difference of 51.66%. Furthermore, introducing a high amount of C O bonds (carbonyl and SP2 groups of carbon atoms) after plasma treatment improved the electrical conductivity to a value of 0.156 S/m. The current results indicate that the properties of GO can be tuned by varying the degree of oxidation, which may pave the way for new developments in GO-based applications. [Display omitted] • Graphene oxide (GO) films were chemically synthesized with high quality and uniformity. • RF oxygen plasma treatment has improved GO sheets physical and chemical properties. • Plasma surface treatment of GO enhanced the chemical functionalization, reduction levels and exhibited good electrical properties.. • RF oxygen plasma treatment reduced the amount of oxygen-containing groups such as (O–C=O), (C–O–C), and (O–C=O). • [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this work was to examine the influence of radio frequency (rf) power on ZnO films synthesized by means of chemical vapor transport technique in inductively coupled plasma (ICP). As the rf power increased, with a fixed processing time of only 8 min, the temperature inside the reactor tube, the thickness and surface roughness of the formed polycrystalline ZnO films increased. The morphology of the ZnO films changed to oblate, webby like cloud-grains, nanoslices, and a mixture of nanorods and nanograins with changing the rf power from 300 to 500 W. Mixed phases of hexagonal ZnO and hexagonal Zn were found for samples synthesized at 300 and 500 W whereas single hexagonal ZnO was synthesized at 350, 400 and 450 W. The optical band gap decreased from 3.35 eV to 3.05 eV with increasing the rf power from 300 W to 500 W. The refractive index and extinction coefficient values were mainly increased with increasing the rf power. The electrical resistivity was generally decreased with increasing rf power and has values between 1.38 × 10−2 - 2.83 × 10−3 Ωcm. The obtained results might be important for useful applications of ZnO films grown by chemical vapor transport with the assistance of ICP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The present work describes the surface improvement and biocompatibility of TiAl24Nb10 intermetallic alloy using rf plasma nitriding. The nitriding process was carried out at different plasma power from 400W to 650W where the other plasma conditions were fixed. Grazing incidence X-ray diffractometry (GIXRD), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), tribometer and a nanohardness tester were employed to characterize the nitrided layer. Further potentiodynamic polarization method was used to describe the corrosion behavior of the un-nitrided and nitrided alloy. It has been found that the Vickers hardness (HV) and corrosion resistance values of the nitrided layers increase with increasing plasma power while the wear rates of the nitrided layers reduce by two orders of magnitude as compared to those of the un-nitrided layer. This improvement in surface properties of the intermetallic alloy is due to formation of a thin modified layer which is composed of titanium nitride in the alloy surface. Moreover, all modified layers were tested for their sustainability as a biocompatible material. Concerning the application area of biocompatibility, the present treated alloy show good surface properties especially for the nitrided alloy at low plasma power of 400W. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The depth dependence of elemental composition, phase distribution, and cross-sectional morphology of rf plasma nitrocarburized 304 austenitic stainless steel were investigated using glow discharge optical spectroscopy (GDOS), grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXRD), and optical microscopy, respectively. A step-wise mechanical polishing method was used to remove successive sublayers of the treated surface. It was found that the properties of the nitrocarburized layer depend critically on the plasma gas composition, which controls the supersaturation of nitrogen and carbon through the compound layer depth. Iron nitride phases and/or nitrogen-expanded austenite (γN) were detected in the nitrocarburized layer prepared at high plasma nitrogen (N2) content. In the compound layer processed at high plasma carbon (C2H2) content, besides the carbon-expanded austenite phase (γC), carbide phases were found predominantly in the top-layer, in which the carbon concentration has a maximum value of ∼2 wt.%. The lattice expansion of the expanded austenite phases changes with sampling depth, depending on local variations in nitrogen and carbon content. The applied rf plasma processing power influences significantly nitrogen and carbon distribution in the treated sublayers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

TiN/TiO x N y bilayer films with various TiN thicknesses were prepared using direct current (d.c.) reactive magnetron sputtering. The ratio of N/O in the bilayer films increased with increasing TiN top layer thickness. The observed crystalline peaks for the bilayer films, for different TiN layer thicknesses, were indexed to anatase TiO 2 with tetragonal structure. Only 0.31° peak shift, to lower 2θ angles was detected. FESEM indicated that the morphology of TiO x N y single layer is consisted of elongated nanocrystals with diameters in the range of 27.9–46.8 nm and the diameters of the nanocrystallites changed slightly with increasing the thickness of TiN layer. The transmittance, absorbance, reflectance spectra and the optical constants of the bilayer films were presented. The photoelectrochemical performance for water splitting of TiN/TiO x N y bilayer films was studied by examination both the continuous and chopped photocurrent density under light illumination. The photocurrent density increases with increasing TiN top layer up to a thickness of 9 nm, after which a reduction in photocurrent is observed. The wettability of TiN/TiO x N y bilayer films could be transformed by UV illumination from hydrophobic to hydrophilic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]