Titanium and Sputtering Target Heat Treatment
Wstitanium is a Chinese titanium and sputtering target heat treatment solution provider, dedicated to providing you with one-stop services from material analysis, process design, heat treatment to quality inspection.
- Annealing
- Solution Treatment
- Thermomechanical
- Hot Pressing Sintering
- Vacuum Sintering
- Isostatic Pressing Sintering
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Titanium And Sputtering Target Heat Treatment
Wstitanium not only focuses on the manufacture of titanium and sputtering targets, but also relies on its outstanding advantages in heat treatment to become the core force to promote the performance of these products and meet the needs of high-end applications. Wstitanium has a diversified heat treatment technology system. For titanium, it covers a variety of processes such as annealing, solution treatment and aging, and thermomechanical treatment. For sputtering targets, hot pressing sintering, vacuum sintering, isostatic pressing sintering, annealing, solution aging and other technologies.
Titanium Heat Treatment
The reason why titanium needs heat treatment is mainly to improve its organizational structure, thereby improving mechanical properties, enhancing corrosion resistance, improving mechanical properties and eliminating residual stress. Titanium presents two different crystal structures at different temperatures. From room temperature to 882°C, titanium exists in a hexagonal close-packed structure (hcp), called the α phase. This structure gives titanium a certain strength and good plasticity. When the temperature exceeds 882°C, titanium undergoes an allotropic transformation and transforms into a body-centered cubic structure (bcc), namely the β phase. The atomic arrangement of the β phase is different from that of the α phase, which makes titanium have better plasticity and lower deformation resistance at high temperatures, which is conducive to hot working and forming. This allotropic transformation is an important basis for titanium heat treatment, and it makes it possible to change the organization and properties of titanium through heat treatment.
Improving organizational structure
In casting, the initial grains of titanium may be coarse and uneven. After heat treatment, such as heating and cooling in the α phase region or the α+β phase region, the grains can be refined. Refined grains can make the performance of titanium more uniform in all directions, providing a good organizational foundation for subsequent mechanical machining.
Adjust phase composition
Titanium has two crystal structures, α phase and β phase, and the proportion and distribution of different phases have a great influence on performance. For example, titanium alloys used in the aerospace field can obtain high strength and good toughness by adjusting the proportion of α phase and β phase through heat treatment.
Improve strength
Through heat treatment processes such as quenching and aging, precipitation phases can be introduced into titanium alloys or solid solution strengthening effects can be produced, thereby improving the strength of titanium. For example, after solution treatment and aging, the strength of Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy can be significantly improved, meeting the use requirements of key components such as aircraft engine blades in high stress environments.
Enhance toughness
Simply high strength may increase titanium brittleness, while heat treatment can improve the toughness of the material while increasing strength. For example, sub-temperature quenching or double heat treatment of some titanium alloys can form a reasonable phase distribution at the grain boundary and within the grain, so that the material has high strength while maintaining good toughness and fatigue resistance.
Improve milling performance
For titanium parts that need to be CNC machining, the cutting performance can be improved by adjusting their organizational structure and hardness through appropriate heat treatment. For example, spheroidizing annealing can spheroidize the second phase particles in titanium alloys, reduce tool wear during cutting, and improve processing efficiency and processing quality.
Eliminate residual stress
Titanium will inevitably produce residual stress during the processing and manufacturing process, such as forging, welding, machining, etc. The presence of residual stress may cause deformation or even cracking of parts during use. Through heat treatment processes such as stress relief annealing, the atoms inside titanium can diffuse and rearrange, reduce residual stress, and improve the dimensional stability and reliability of parts.
Heat treatment of sputtering targets
Sputtering targets refer to target materials bombarded by ion beams during the sputtering coating process, whose atoms are sputtered to the surface of the substrate under the impact of ions to form a thin film. According to the chemical composition, sputtering targets can be divided into metal targets (such as copper targets, aluminum targets, titanium targets, etc.), alloy targets (such as copper indium gallium selenide targets used in the field of solar cells), ceramic targets (such as indium tin oxide ITO targets used in display panels) and compound targets (such as zinc sulfide targets used in optical films). Targets that have undergone cold processing (such as rolling, forging, CNC machining, etc.) have a large number of dislocations and lattice distortions inside, storing high distortion energy. Heat treatment is a key process for effectively regulating the organization and performance of sputtering targets, and plays an irreplaceable role in improving the density, uniformity, purity and sputtering characteristics of targets.
Enhance hardness and strength
Sputtering targets need to have a certain hardness and strength to resist the forces such as ion bombardment during sputtering. Heat treatment can make the atoms inside the target more orderly and form a more stable crystal structure, thereby enhancing hardness and strength.
Eliminate internal defects
There will inevitably be some defects inside the target, such as pores, microcracks, dislocations, etc. Through heat treatment, the diffusion ability of atoms is enhanced, which can rearrange dislocations, thereby reducing or eliminating these internal defects and improving the density and uniformity of the target.
Improve surface quality
Heat treatment can make the surface of the target more flat and smooth, and reduce impurities and oxide layers on the surface. A flat and smooth surface can improve the uniformity of sputtering and avoid the situation where the local sputtering rate is too high or too low during the sputtering process, thereby ensuring the uniformity and quality of the deposited film.
Eliminate residual stress
Residual stress will be generated in the target during the manufacturing process, which may cause deformation and cracking of the target during storage or use. Processes such as stress relief annealing during heat treatment can effectively eliminate residual stress and improve the dimensional stability and structural stability of the target material.
Wstitanium Titanium Heat Treatment Capabilities
Wstitanium continues to introduce advanced heat treatment equipment and testing instruments, covering multiple advanced heat treatment workshops, and attracting a group of excellent material engineers and technical workers to join. The team members include professionals in many fields such as material physics, material chemistry, and heat treatment technology. They have many years of work experience in the field of heat treatment of titanium and sputtering targets.
Titanium Heat Treatment Service
Annealing
Wstitanium provides a variety of annealing services such as full annealing, incomplete annealing and stress relief annealing. In the full annealing process, the heating temperature is precisely controlled to be 30-50℃ higher than the β transformation temperature (Tβ). The holding time is determined by precise calculation according to the titanium alloy grade characteristics and workpiece size to ensure that the alloy elements are fully diffused. Then it is slowly cooled with the furnace to obtain a uniform equiaxed α + β structure, effectively eliminating work hardening, improving the plasticity and toughness of the material, and improving processing performance.
For incomplete annealing, the heating temperature is strictly controlled in the α + β phase region, lower than Tβ, generally between 700-850℃, and air cooling or furnace cooling after holding can not only eliminate some stress, but also retain a certain hardening effect, meeting the needs of specific comprehensive requirements for strength and plasticity. Stress relief annealing is carried out at a lower temperature range of 450-650℃, and air-cooling is performed after 1-3 hours of heat preservation, which effectively eliminates the residual stress generated by the titanium alloy during processing, prevents deformation and cracking of parts, and improves dimensional stability.
Solution treatment and aging
For α + β type titanium alloys, it is usually 10-100℃ below Tβ; for β type titanium alloys, it is above Tβ. The holding time is strictly calculated to ensure that the alloy elements are fully dissolved in the matrix, and then a rapid cooling method (such as quenching) is used to obtain a supersaturated solid solution. Select a suitable aging temperature within the temperature range of 450-650℃, and the holding time varies from 4 to 24 hours, so that the solute atoms precipitate from the solid solution to form a fine dispersed precipitation phase, significantly improving the strength and hardness of the alloy while maintaining good plasticity and toughness.
Thermomechanical treatment
Wstitanium provides advanced thermomechanical treatment services such as isothermal forging and multi-pass processing. During the isothermal forging process, the titanium alloy billet is forged at a specific temperature in the α + β phase region at a precisely controlled low strain rate, so that the material undergoes dynamic recrystallization during the deformation process, thereby obtaining a uniform and fine equiaxed structure, greatly improving the strength, plasticity and fatigue performance of the material, and is widely used in the manufacture of high-end parts such as titanium alloy discs for aircraft engines.
Multi-pass processing uses carefully designed multiple rolling, forging and other processing methods to deform in different temperature ranges, and combined with appropriate intermediate annealing treatment, gradually refine the grains, improve the comprehensive performance of the material, and meet the performance requirements of different customers for titanium alloy plates, bars and other products.
Sputtering Target Heat Treatment Service
Sintering treatment
For sputtering targets of different materials, Wstitanium provides a variety of sintering treatment services such as hot pressing sintering, vacuum sintering and isostatic pressing sintering. During hot pressing sintering, the target powder is placed in a special mold and sintered under precisely controlled temperature and pressure. The temperature is generally set between 0.6 and 0.8 times the melting point of the target material, and the pressure is precisely adjusted within the range of 10-100MPa according to the target material and the required performance, which effectively promotes the contact and diffusion between powder particles, inhibits grain growth, and obtains high-density, fine-grained high-quality targets, which are widely used in the preparation of high-performance tungsten targets, etc.
Vacuum sintering
Vacuum sintering sinters the target powder in a high vacuum environment (the vacuum degree is generally required to be between 10⁻³ and 10⁻⁵Pa), effectively avoiding oxidation and impurity contamination, and improving the purity of the target. The sintering temperature is precisely set according to the composition of the target material. For example, the vacuum sintering temperature of copper targets is generally 800-1000℃, ensuring that the target material is densified at high temperature and meets the strict requirements for high-purity targets such as semiconductor chip manufacturing.
Isostatic pressing sintering
Isostatic pressing sintering includes cold isostatic pressing (CIP) and hot isostatic pressing (HIP). Cold isostatic pressing is to load the target powder into an elastic mold and use a liquid medium in a high-pressure container to evenly apply pressure so that the powder is compacted in all directions under the same pressure; hot isostatic pressing simultaneously realizes the compaction and sintering process under high temperature and high pressure, and can prepare targets with complex shapes and uniform density, which is especially suitable for the preparation of large targets, such as large-sized molybdenum targets used in the field of flat panel displays.
Annealing
To eliminate the work hardening and residual stress generated during the manufacturing process of sputtering targets, Wstitanium provides recrystallization annealing and stress relief annealing services. Recrystallization annealing heats the target to 100-200℃ above the recrystallization temperature. The holding time is accurately calculated according to the target size and heating equipment, generally 1-3 hours, and then slowly cools to effectively eliminate work hardening, restore plasticity, rearrange the grains, and improve the conductivity and plasticity of the target. It is suitable for metal targets that have been processed by rolling.
The stress relief annealing heating temperature is generally lower than the recrystallization temperature, between 200-600℃. After holding for 1-2 hours, it is air-cooled or furnace-cooled. It effectively eliminates the residual stress generated during the processing, assembly or use of the target, and improves the dimensional stability and reliability of the target. It is especially important for materials such as ceramic targets that are prone to residual stress during processing.
Conclusion
In the field of titanium and sputtering target manufacturing, Wstitanium has continuously improved product performance and quality with its outstanding advantages in heat treatment, providing support for many high-end industries. In the future, we will continue to lead with technological innovation and be oriented to your needs, continuously expand our business areas, enhance our industry influence, and make greater contributions to promoting the development of materials science and manufacturing.