A New Al2O3 Composite Produced from Sputter-Coated Particle

A particle sputter-coating apparatus that uses a rotational barrel chamber of a special structure is described, along with the technique whereby this apparatus is used with another particle electroplating apparatus developed by the authors to coat Al2O3 particles with titanium and then with copper. These double-coated particles are then molded and sintered in the liquid phase, yielding an elaborate composite material in which Al2O3 is dispersed homogeneously. This copper-based Al2O3 particle-reinforced composite material (PRCM) has the following characteristics: 1) Adhesive bonding strength between copper and Al2O3 is high. 2) The number of remaining pores is minimized and Vickers hardness is very high. This particle coating technique makes it possible to create various kinds of composite materials, and has recently attracted considerable attention as a key technology for new functional composite materials.