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Effects of annealing temperature on the properties of copper films prepared by magnetron sputtering

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Abstract

Copper oxide thin films were prepared by a direct-current magnetron sputtering method followed by a thermal annealing treatment at 100–500 °C. The obtained films were characterized by X-ray diffraction, UV-vis absorption spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. With the increase of the annealing temperature, it was found that the films transformed sequentially from amorphous to single-phase Cu (100 °C), mixed-phase of Cu and Cu2O (150 °C), single-phase Cu2O (200 °C), then to mixed-phase of Cu2O and CuO (300 °C), and finally to single-phase CuO (400–500 °C). Further analyses indicated that the Cu/Cu2O thin films and the Cu2O thin films presented no further oxidation even on the surface in air atmosphere. Additionally, the visible-light photocatalytic behavior of the copper oxide thin films on the degradation of methylene blue (MB) was also investigated, indicating that the films with pure Cu2O phase or Cu/Cu2O mixed phases have excellent photocatalytic efficiencies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China

    Yiming Liu  (刘一鸣), Jianjun Zhang, Wanggang Zhang, Wei Liang  (梁伟), Bin Yu & Jinbo Xue

  2. Shanxi Institute of Analytical Science, Taiyuan, 030006, China

    Yiming Liu  (刘一鸣)

Authors
  1. Yiming Liu  (刘一鸣)
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  2. Jianjun Zhang
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  3. Wanggang Zhang
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  4. Wei Liang  (梁伟)
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  5. Bin Yu
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  6. Jinbo Xue
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wei Liang  (梁伟).

Additional information

Funded in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos.51175363, 51274149), the Program for Changjiang Scholar and Innovative Research Team in University (No. IRT0972), the Outstanding Innovation Project in Shanxi Province (No.20133027) and Taiyuan University of Science and Technology Innovation Fund (No.2013A004)

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Liu, Y., Zhang, J., Zhang, W. et al. Effects of annealing temperature on the properties of copper films prepared by magnetron sputtering. J. Wuhan Univ. Technol.-Mat. Sci. Edit. 30, 92–96 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11595-015-1106-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11595-015-1106-9

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