Corrosion of Ultrathin Iron Layers and Titanium Nitride Coated Iron

In this paper results are presented on the corrosion resistance against SO₂-polluted atmospheres of ultrathin Fe layers (<2.5 nm) deposited on SiO₂/Si wafers by two methods: vacuum evaporation and Langmuir–Blodgett (LB) technique. It is shown that the corrosion resistance of the evaporated films is similar to that shown by massive iron while the corrosion resistance of the LB films is remarkably higher. We also show that the corrosion resistance of iron evaporated films can be greatly enhanced by using TiN coatings. Results on the influence of the SO₂ concentration, the atmospheric relative humidity and the exposure time on the corrosion behaviour of thin (30 nm) TiN layers deposited onto evaporated Fe films on SiO₂/Si wafers are discussed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.