Passivating layers for electrical devices.

以钨或钛等金属为基础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运行的应用，需要一层保护性涂层。这些涂层通常以氧化物或氮化物等惰性高温材料为基础。然而，这些高温材料是脆性的，由于金属加热元件和脆性涂层之间的巨大热膨胀不匹配而失效。该项目建立在脆性材料在极薄时更柔顺的概念上，并且应该更好地适应失配应变。该项目将专注于寻找防止氧化的最小涂层厚度，同时仍能适应失配应变。

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.