Ink-Jet Printing of CeO₂ Thin Film Targets

Thin film targets are an essential component for many nuclear measurements and experiments and are challenging to produce. Ink-jet printing coupled with solution combustion synthesis is a novel development with high material efficiency that reduces costs and accomplishes the production of thin films with materials that are otherwise difficult to handle. The printer deposits picoliter-sized droplets of combustible solutions composed of metal nitrates and fuel onto aluminum substrates, which then are heat-treated for combustion synthesis to turn the deposited solutions into thin films of metal oxides. This experiment used cerium nitrate (oxidizer) solutions with acetylacetone (fuel) dissolved in a solvent to create thin cerium oxide films. These thin films, with thicknesses of 10 to 100 nanometers, can be used as targets for nuclear measurements and surrogates for actinides in nuclear fuel irradiation studies. This presentation will show a parametric study (heating conditions, droplet deposition step size, solvent type, concentration of solution) to investigate the effects on the uniformity and thickness of thin films.