Tag: application

Year in Review: 2018 Top Posts Collection

Happy New Year in 2019! We are very happy with your company and encouragement that push us to insist on updating every week. On the occasion of the arrival of 2019, let us summarize the Top Posts in 2018 for you.

Metal History

“Metal History” is a popular column we have opened this year, aiming at introducing the discovery of different kinds of metals. Among them, the Top 3 posts in this column are as follows:

How was titanium discovered? | History of Titanium

Titanium is a metal element that is known as “space metal” because of its light weight, high strength and good corrosion resistance. The most common compound of titanium is titanium dioxide, and other compounds include titanium tetrachloride and titanium trichloride. Click the title of the article to know more.

Discovery and development of tungsten | History of Tungsten

The history of tungsten dates back to the 17th century. At that time, miners in the Erzgebirge Mountains of Saxony, Germany, noticed that some of the ore would interfere with the reduction of cassiterite and produce slag. The miners gave the mines some German nicknames: “wolfert” and “wolfrahm”. Click the title of the article to know more.

How was cerium discovered? | History of Cerium

Cerium is the most abundant rare earth elements. It is a silvery gray active metal, whose powder is easily oxidized in the air and soluble in acid. Cerium has been widely used in the automotive industry as a catalyst to reduce emission, and in glass industry as glass polishing materials. Cerium sputtering target is an important material in optical coating. Click the title of the article to know more. Click the title of the article to know more.

Metal Materials Application

Apart from history, we also introduce the multiple applications of these metal materials. Among them, the Top 3 posts in this column are as follows:

Molybdenum Target Mammography Detection

At present, molybdenum target mammography is considered the recommended breast screening examinations for women’s breast cancer, one of the major causes of deaths among women, affects about 12% of women around the world. Click the title of the article to know more.

Application of titanium and titanium alloys in medical field

Titanium is an ideal medical metal material and can be used as an implant for the human body. Titanium alloy has been widely used in the medical field and has become the material of choice for medical products. Click the title of the article to know more.

A short analysis of sputtering targets for semiconductor application

Semiconductors have high requirements for the quality and purity of the sputtering materials, which explains why the price of anelva targets is relatively high. Click the title of the article to know more.

Sputtering Targets

Sputtering Target is the consistent keyword of our website, and thus we have shared many useful information about some specific type of sputtering targets. Our intention is to help you better understand these materials—their properties, applications, developing prospect and so on. And the followings are the posts you really have to read. Among them, the Top 3 posts in this column are as follows:

PVD vs. CVD: What’s the difference?

In recent years, physical vapor deposition (PVD) and chemical vapor deposition (PVD) have wide applications in various industries to increase the hardness of tools and molds or apply beautiful colors to the products. Thus these two methods are considered as the most attractive surface coating technologies. Click the title of the article to know more.

What is the Indium Bonding for Sputtering Target?

The term “indium bonding” in thin film coating industry, simply speaking, refers to bond two (or more) sputtering targets with indium (In), or one (or more) with indium plate together. Click the title of the article to know more.

What is Target Poisoning in Sputtering Deposition?

At some stage in the sputtering deposition, positive ions are continuously amassed on the surface of the sputtering target. Due to the fact that those fantastic ions aren’t neutralized, the negative bias of the target surface gradually decreases, and progressively the normal operation can not be completed. This is the target poisoning phenomenon. Click the title of the article to know more.

Glad you are part of SAM’s 2018. Next year, please continue following us and we promise to give you more valuable information! Also, you can visit our official website https://www.sputtertargets.net/ for more information.

How was Silicon discovered? | History of Silicon

Silicon

Discovery of Silicon

In 1787, the French chemist Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier first discovered the silicon present in rocks. In 1800, silicon was mistaken by Sir Humphry Davy as a compound. In 1811, French chemists Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Louis Jacques Thénard probably prepared impure amorphous Silicon by heating potassium with silicon tetrafluoride. They later named it silicon according to the Latin silex (meteorite).

Until 1823, silicon was first discovered in the form of a metal element by the Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius. One year later, he extracted amorphous silicon in much the same way as Gay-Lussac, and then purified the elemental silicon by repeated cleaning; in the same year, he heated the silicon oxide powder and the mixture of iron and carbon at a high temperature and obtain the iron silicide.

In order to extract pure silicon, Berzelius dry-fired the silicon-fluorine-calcium compound, hydrolyzed the obtained solid, and manage to obtain the pure silicon. In 1824, in Stockholm, Berzelius obtained relatively pure silicon powder by heating potassium fluorosilicate and potassium. Therefore, it is agreed that the honor of discovering silicon belongs to Berzelius.

Properties of Silicon

Symbol: Si
Atomic Number: 14
Atomic Weight: 28.09
Element Category: metalloid
Color: dark gray with a bluish tinge
Density: 2328.3 kg/m³
Hardness: 6.5
Proportion in Earth’s Crust: 25.7%
Other Names: Silicium, Silicio

Application of Silicon

High-purity monocrystalline silicon is an important semiconductor material that can be used as a solar cell to convert radiant energy into electrical energy, which is a promising material in the development of energy.

Silicon can also be made into cermet composites, which are resistant to high temperatures, toughness, and can be cut. They not only inherit the respective advantages of metals and ceramics, but also make up for the inherent defects of both, and can be applied to weapons manufacturing and aerospace.

Pure silica can be used to draw high transparency glass fiber for optical fiber communication, which is the latest modern communication means.

Please visit https://www.sputtertargets.net/ for more information.

The Self-Healing Ability of Cerium Coating (Chromium Substitute)

In recent years, several research efforts have targeted the utilization of rare earth elements, especially on cerium thin-film coatings. Cerium is a soft, ductile, and silvery-white metal that tarnishes when exposed to air, and it is so soft that can be cut with a knife. Cerium has no biological role and is not very toxic. Many surface treatments, like sol-gel, chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and physical vapor deposition (PVD) techniques, based on the use of cerium and cerium compounds have been investigated because of their low toxicity. In other words, consumption or inhalation of those compounds is not considered harmful to health.

Cerium compound physical vapor deposition permits improving corrosion protection performance of the surface on it is deposited on. The composition of the films has an impact on the corrosion properties of the cerium-based layer. In general, the coatings obtained by PVD are composed of Ce compounds in trivalent or tetravalent states. The ratio between these 2 oxidization states is strongly dependent on the oxidizing ability of the medium. However, no clear correlation between the Ce oxidation state and corrosion properties was found nowadays.

cerium film
cerium film

What’s more, these cerium coatings have an active mechanism similar to that observed for chromate coatings in that they both have the amazing self-healing ability when damage occurs. Chromate coatings have self-healing properties because of the presence of unreacted Cr6+ ions that are able to migrate to the exposed metal (for example a scratch) and can be further reduced to create a Cr3+ based compound that seals the scratch or the defect. However, the chromate compounds are extremely toxic and carcinogenic. Since cerium is not toxic, it is a perfect substitute for chromate. When it comes to cerium, the contact between a CeO2 film and solution induces the formation of Ce(OH)22+ ions. The existence of oxidizable metal would reduce these ions into Ce3+. Then the precipitation of trivalent cerium oxide occurs; it can be enhanced by the local increase of alkalinity. Therefore, this precipitated oxide seals the film and decreases the corrosion rate of the metal. Since cerium is not toxic, it is a perfect substitute for chromate.

In conclusion, cerium is good, but some people would concern about its price. Is rare earth element—Cerium—very expensive? The answer is not, actually Cerium is one of the least expensive rare earth and is the major component of “mischmetal”. So don’t care too much about the price.

For high purity sputtering targets & evaporation materials inquiries, please visit SAM Sputter Target.

For more news and knowledge about sputtering targets, please see SAM Target News.

Related Blog: How was cerium discovered? | History of Cerium

Application of molybdenum in metal smelting

Compared to metals such as titanium, aluminum and platinum, molybdenum does not seem to be as famous, but it is also a very widely used metal in our life. So in the next few weeks, SAM Sputter Targets will introduce different applications of molybdenum. If you are interested in metals, please follow us for subsequent updates. Today we will first introduce the application of molybdenum in metal smelting.

Molybdenum
Molybdenum

Steel

The main use of molybdenum is to produce various types of steel and alloys. The addition of molybdenum (mainly in the form of ferromolybdenum, molybdenum oxide and calcium molybdate) to a range of steels such as structural steel, spring steel, bearing steel, tool steel, stainless steel and magnetic steel can significantly improve the properties of steel. Molybdenum improves the hardenability, toughness and heat strength of steel and prevents temper brittleness. Molybdenum also improves the corrosion resistance of steel to certain media so that it does not pitting. The addition of molybdenum to the cast iron enhances the strength and wear resistance of the cast iron.

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