Structure of nanocomposite FexOy(Fe)SiOx films

DOI: 10.62564/M4-AE1321

Anatoliy Evtukh^1,2, Maria Voitovych¹, Olha Pylypova², Oleh Bratus<sup>1

1</sup>V. Lashkaryov Institute of Semiconductor Physics of National Academy of Science of Ukraine
²Institute of High Technologies, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine


Nowadays composite films containing semiconductor or metal nanoparticles embedded into dielectric matrix are of a great interest for the material engineering and variety applications. The composite films with iron nanoinclusions have the special attention due to the advantages of iron and iron oxides such as their availability, non-toxicity, and biocompatibility. The composite films containing metal nanocrystals in oxide matrix demonstrate the possibility to be used as protective screens from electromagnetic radiation. The nanocomposite FexOy(Fe)/SiOx films were deposited by Ion Plasma Sputtering technique at sputtering of combined silicon-iron target in O2+Ar ambient on Si substrates. In the second stage, FexOy(Fe)/SiOx films were annealed in the argon atmosphere at the temperature of range of 300 - 1100 °C during 60 min. To determine the structure and morphology of the films before and after thermal annealing the variety techniques were used. It was established that the structural and phase transformations of FexOy(Fe)SiOx nanocomposite films already begin at the annealing temperature T = 300 C in Ar medium. A further increase in the annealing temperature leads to the more intensive process of phase separation. Thermal annealing of FexOy(Fe)SiOx nanocomposite films in the O2 leads to the increase in the intensity of phase separation of the films. During ion-plasma sputtering of the iron target (without Si), the nanocomposite film contains unoxidized iron in the iron oxide matrix FexOy(Fe). As a result of studies of the composition of nanocomposite films by IR spectroscopy, it was established that the largest absorption band is observed in the region of 900-1300 cm-1, which is characteristic of SiOx films. IR bands of metal oxide bonds in the wide range of 400 - 800 cm-1 is practically not registered on freshly sputtered FexOy(Fe)SiOx samples. This indicates that the iron oxide shell around Fe is quite thin.

Keywords
Composite fims, structure, nanoinclusions, silicon oxide, iron

Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the project “Development of nanocomposite material technology for highly efficient absorption of electromagnetic radiation” of the National Research Foundation of Ukraine (No. 2022.01/0066).

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