Production and investigation of nano dimensional Ag structures on TiO2 by cold substrate technique

In this thesis study, it is aimed to cover the surface of Ti-based materials with Ag by using new experimental processes with cold substrate technique and to examine the TiO2-Ag binary structure. Titanium and its alloys (Ti-6Al-4V) are generally preferred due to their stable structure, high strength/weight ratios, high corrosion resistance, processability and biocompatibility in a wide range of applications. Thin film formation process is realized by soliton growth mechanism in the cold substrate technique used in this thesis. The most important feature of the soliton mechanism is the coating of the surface with equal size nano particles. Silver ions were preferred which are used especially in the photoelectronic technology also in the health field due to its antibacterial properties as coating material. The morphological and structural properties of the samples were examined after preparation of Ag coated samples at the substrate temperature of 100-300 K with specially prepared apparatus. It was determined from the X-ray diffraction patterns where Ag layers were grown in cubic structure and the intensity of Ag structure peaks increased as the substrate temperature decreased. Parallel to this, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy measurements was determined where the amount of Ag coated increased as the substrate temperature decreased. As the substrate temperature decreases, scanning electron microscope measurements showed that the particle sizes decreased in the Ag layers and the Ag films prepared in the 100-200 K temperature range were coated in equal sized nano particles. Higher corrosion resistance was observed in this temperature range, the coatings which has grown. On the other hand, nano-sized Ag coatings obtained in the 100-200 K temperature zone showed a decrease in the hardness value as expected. Keywords: Cold Substrate Technique, Soliton Mechanism, TiO2, Ag Nano Particles