Investigation of structure of a thin SiO2 layer as an antifouling and corrosion-resistant coating

Abstract

The structures of a SiO2 layers synthesized using perhydropolysilazane [PHPS, labeled as SiO2(PHPS)] on both Si and Fe/Si substrates were studied using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and neutron reflectivity (NR) analysis. The FT-IR results revealed that no unreacted PHPS remained and that the primary component of the SiO2(PHPS) layer could be considered to be SiO2. The NR analysis suggested that a uniform SiO2(PHPS) layer was synthesized on the Si and Fe/Si substrate and that the density of this SiO2(PHPS)layer was lower than that of natural SiO2. In addition, the density of the SiO2(PHPS) layer was altered by varying both the thickness and the type of substrate used. These results indicated that the variation in the density of the SiO2(PHPS) layer depended on the efficiency of cross-linking reaction between the silazane oligomers in the PHPS coating.