Composite fluorocarbon/ZnO films prepared by RF magnetron sputtering of Zn and PTFE

In this paper, composite fluorocarbon/ZnO films were prepared by R.F. sputtering used polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and Zn target on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate. Argon was used as the working gas and oxygen used as reacting gas. The obtained films were characterized by means of SEM, XPS and UV-visible spectrophotometer. It was found, the surface morphology of composite fluorocarbon/ZnO films vary as the deposited time of ZnO. The growing mode of composite films is the deposition and expansion. The ultraviolet absorbance of composite fluorocarbon/ZnO films is equal to that of fluorocarbon films' when deposited time of ZnO is within 2 min, while distinctively increases when deposited time of ZnO exceeds 5 min, the absorbance value is larger than the ZnOs'. The composite films exhibit multi-enhanced ultraviolet absorption due to pi-conjugated molecular structure, nanoparticle-pore reflection and the absorption effect of nanosized ZnO particles. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.