Effect of firing temperature on microstructure and dielectric properties of chromium oxide based glass composite thick films on stainless steel substrate

Abstract

We report the influence of firing temperature on Al₂O₃–chromium oxide based (Cr₂O₃–Bi₂O₃–B₂O₃–SiO₂–Al₂O₃) glass composite (named as GC-1 composite) thick films of thickness (27 ± 3) µm deposited onto 0.6 mm thick austenitic grade stainless steel (DIN 1.4301/AISI 304) substrate by screen printing technique, which can be used as a substitute to alumina substrate. Prior to formulation of glass composite, the chromium oxide based glass (named as GC-1) phase was prepared separately by melt-quench technique. X-ray diffraction analysis confirmed amorphous nature of the GC-1 glass. The thermo gravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry of the GC-1 glass shows thermal stability over the temperature range of 20–1000 °C. We observed that the firing temperature significantly influences microstructural and dielectric properties of the GC-1 composite film. The deposited GC-1 composite films onto stainless steel base were fired at temperatures between the range of 550–750 °C, showed the surface resistivity in the range of (1.0–6.9 ± 0.2) × 10¹² ohms per square. The microstructure of these composite films recorded using scanning electron microscopy and electrical properties recorded using LCR meter were correlated with each other. The study revealed that the film fired at 600 °C were found to be superior among the samples under investigation in terms of microstructure, stable relative permittivity [36 (± 1)] and low loss tangent [0.02 (± 0.002)] in frequency range of 1–200 kHz, and surface resistivity (~ 5.1 × 10¹² ohms per square).