Novel Solid Silicon Oxycarbide Unmodified Carbon Nanotube Composite Coating: Structure, Topography and Mechanical Properties

A silicon oxycarbide-carbon nanotube coating on steel was synthesized using a novel approach utilizing unmodified carbon nanotubes (CNT), silane surfactant and large monomer-based silsesquioxane sol. This enabled the creation of very stable carbon nanotube dispersion, which in turn resulted in homogenous layers obtained in a simple dip-coating process. The samples were annealed in 800 °C in argon to obtain a uniform glassy silicon oxycarbide-based composite from a silsesquioxane precursor. The layers’ morphology and nanomechanical properties were investigated using a number of methods, including infrared spectroscopy (IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), nanoindentation, Accelerated Property Mapping (XPM) and Quantitative Nanomechanical Mapping – an Atomic Force Microscopy method (QNM-AFM).