Adhesive and corrosion-resistant zirconium oxide coatings on stainless steel prepared by ion beam assisted deposition

To improve the adhesion and corrosion resistance in ceramic and steel systems, zirconium oxide films were deposited on austenitic type 316L stainless-steel substrates by using the ion beam assisted deposition (IBAD) method, in which ZrO2 evaporation and energetic Ar and/or O-2 ion bombardment at 250 eV were carried out simultaneously. To study the influence of the film thickness on the performance of coatings, thin (0.2-0.4 mu m) and thick (2-3 mu m) films were prepared. The film structure was investigated by X-ray diffractometry. The adhesion was evaluated by a tensile pull-off tester, showing that IBAD treatments could provide a remarkable potential to enhance the adhesion. The corrosion behavior was determined by potentio-dynamic polarization measurements. It was found that excellent corrosion-protection ability of zirconium oxide coatings on stainless steel was achieved after IBAD treatments. The mechanism for explaining the results has been discussed in terms of the surface observation and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy studies.