Effects of Mg Composition and Bias Voltage on the Color of Mg2Si Thin Films

Abstract

While people are less aware of the functional excellence of products due to the advancement of technological development, design elements such as color and texture are becoming more important in determining the priorities that purchasing products. Plastics have a problem in that they do not have the metallic texture and gloss that are generally in high demand, Nevertheless, plastic is widely used as internal and external materials due to its lightweight, processability, and productivity. Various colors can be implemented by light refraction using a transparent oxide layer, but this method is difficult to apply to products with many curves because the color changes according to the thickness of the thin film. To solve this problem, there is a need for an improved metal coating technology that can implement various colors without using oxides. In this study, we used intermetallic compounds to produce colored thin films. thin film deposition method used magnetron sputtering, and various colors were designed to be exhibited by changing the process parameters. To deposit high energy particles during sputtering, an RF bias was applied to the substrate during the process. After the experiment, the spectrophotometer was used to measure the color value of the thin film that had been applied, and Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) analysis were conducted to confirm the thin film's surface image and alloy ratio. In addition, the thin film's surface's crystal structure and molecular bonding condition were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis.