CHEN Ting ^{1, 2}, RENG Yulei ^{1, 2}, ZHA Jianrui ¹, JIANG Weihui ^{1, 2}, JIANG Wan ², XIE Zhixiang ¹

(1. Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute, Jingdezhen 333403, Jiangxi, China; 2. National Engineering Research Center for Domestic & Building Ceramics, Jingdezhen 333001, Jiangxi, China)

Abstract: Zircon thin film was prepared via sol-gel method using zirconium acetate as zirconium source, tetraethoxysilane as silicon source, acetyl acetone as chelating agent, and lithium fluoride as mineralizer, respectively. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and atomic force microscope (AFM) were employed to study the effects of heating temperature, holding time and heating rate on the phase composition and morphology of zircon film. The experiment results indicated that the xerogel possessed great mass loss of about 40.57% before 500 °C. Therefore, the mild heating rates of 0.5-1.0 °C·min^-1 contribute to the removeal of organics and prevent the thin film cracking. Due to its two-dimensional mass transfer properties, zircon film needs high temperature calcination over 900 °C to obtain the pure phase. Moreover, the degree of crystallinity of zircon film is increasing with the increase of the holding times from 0.5 to 3 h. The AFM result revealed that the smooth zircon film was achieved through this heat threament.
Key words: thin film; sol-gel method; ZrSiO₄; heat treatment