Nanostructured vanadium carbide thin films produced by RF magnetron sputtering

Abstract

In this paper, nanostructured vanadium carbide thin films were deposited on glass substrates and their optical and surface properties were analyzed. All produced samples were transparent in the optical region. Refractive index values were calculated using the Drude model. According to contact angle measurements of the coated surfaces, the samples show high wettability. The surface free energies of the samples were found to be very similar. The influence of the nitrogen content in the buffer gas mixture was determined; it was concluded that the microstructure, refractive index, surface morphology, surface free energy, and thickness of thin films can change in response to the nitrogen concentration of the radio frequency (RF) buffer gas.