Vacuum-Plasma Synthesis of Functional Coatings Using Targets Obtained by the Sol-Gel Method

To prepare coatings by electron-beam sputtering, targets have been designed and synthesized by a sol-gel method, based on SiO2 and TiO2 materials. The optimum basic compounds for the synthesis of stable silica sol and titanium are reported. Spectroscopic studies have been conducted for the coatings aiming at the characterization in terms of optical characteristics, such as refractive index, reflectance, transmission and absorption coefficients. The morphology of the layers was investigated by atomic force (AFM) and scanning electron (SEM) microscopies.