Passivating layers for electrical devices.

基于钨或钛等金属的金属加热元件只能在没有氧气的保护环境中加热。对于那些需要这些加热元件在空气中工作的应用，需要一层保护涂层。这些涂层通常是基于惰性高温材料，如氧化物或氮化物。然而，由于金属加热元件与脆性涂层之间存在较大的热膨胀失配，这些高温材料易脆而失效。在这个项目中，脆性材料在非常薄的情况下更柔顺，并且应该更好地适应不匹配应变。该项目将重点寻找最小涂层厚度，以防止氧化，同时仍然适应不匹配应变。

Metal heating elements based on metals such as tungsten or titanium can only be heated in protective environments devoid of oxygen. For those applications that require these heating elements to operate in air, a protective coating is required. These coatings are typically based on inert high temperature materials such as oxides or nitrides. However, these high temperature materials are brittle and fail due to the large thermal expansion misfit between the metal heating element and the brittle coating. In this project is built on the concept that brittle materials are more compliant when they are extremely thin, and should better accommodate the mismatch strain. This project will focus on finding the minimum coating thickness that prevents oxidation while still accommodating the mismatch strain.