Tribological and electrical properties of TiO_2 thin films for polymer insulator as the dielectric coating of electric railroad

摘要

TiO_2 thin films were deposited on glass and polymer insulator substrates as self-cleaning coatings, TiO_2 films were deposited at various RF powers by the unbalanced RF magnetron sputtering method using a TiO_2 ceramic target. We investigated the tribological, structural, and electrical properties of the deposited TiO_2 films at various RF powers. The result showed that the hardness and elastic modulus values of the TiO_2 films increased with the increase of RF power. The surface roughness and contact angle values also increased with the increase of RF power. Also, the rms leakage currents of the TiO_2 films were low for the insulator coating layer. The TiO_2 films fabricated in this work are suitable for the protection of polymer insulators because of their low leakage current and good tribological properties.