Enhancement of the Adhesive Strength between Ag Films and Mo Substrate by Ag Implanted via Ion Beam-Assisted Deposition

Silver-coated molybdenum is an optimum material selection to replace pure silver as solar cell interconnector. However, the low adhesive strength between Ag films and Mo substrate hinders the application of the interconnector, because it is difficult to form metallurgical bonding or compound in the film/substrate interface using conventional deposition. In order to improve the adhesion, some Ag particles were implanted into the surface of Mo substrate by ion beam-assisted deposition (IBAD) before the Ag films were deposited by magnetron sputtering deposition (MD). The objective of this work was to investigate the effect of different assisted ion beam energy on the film/substrate adhesive properties. In addition, the fundamental adhesion mechanism was illustrated. The results revealed that the adhesion between Ag films and Mo substrate could be greatly enhanced by IBAD. With the increase of the assisting ion beam energy, the adhesive strength first increased and then decreased, with the optimum adhesion being able to rise to 25.29 MPa when the energy of the assisting ion beam was 30 keV. It could be inferred that the combination of “intermixing layer” and “implanted layer” formed by the high-energy ion bombardment was the key to enhancing the adhesion between Ag films and Mo substrate effectively.