title: Alumina coating on dense tungsten powder by fluidized bed metal organic chemical vapour deposition.
abstract: In order to study the feasibility of coating very dense powders by alumina using Fluidized Bed Metal Organic Chemical Vapour Deposition (FB-MOCVD), experiments were performed on a commercial tungsten powder, 75 microm in median volume diameter and 19,300 kg/m3 in grain density. The first part of the work was dedicated to the experimental study of the tungsten powder fluidization using argon as carrier gas at room temperature and at 400 degrees C. Due to the very high density of the tungsten powder, leading to low initial fixed bed heights and low bed expansions, different weights of powder were tested in order to reach satisfactory temperature profiles along the fluidized bed. Then, using argon as a fluidized bed former and aluminium acetylacetonate Al(C5O2H7)3 as a single source precursor, alumina thin films were deposited on tungsten particles at a low temperature range (e.g., 370-420 degrees C) by FB-MOCVD. The influence of the weight of powder, bed temperature and run duration was studied. Characterizations of the obtained samples were performed by various techniques including scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) analyses, Field Emission Gun SEM (FEG-SEM) and Fourier Transform InfraRed (FT-IR) spectroscopy. The different analyses indicated that tungsten particles were uniformly coated by a continuous alumina thin film. The thickness of the film ranged between 25 and 80 nm, depending on the coating conditions. The alumina thin films were amorphous and contained carbon contamination. This latter may correspond to the adsorption of species resulting from incomplete decomposition of the precursor at so low deposition temperature.
authors.affiliation: CEA, DEN, DEC, SPUA, LCU, Cadarache, F-13108 Saint-Paul-lès-Durance, France.
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rodriguez
authors.forename: Brigitte
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Caussat
authors.forename: Carine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ablitzer
authors.forename: Xavière
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Iltis
authors.forename: Meryl
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brothier