The proposed work is to develop a new class of high performance ceramic coatings and articles by means of plasma deposition. The vacuum process yields small particles which are then joined together in the ultimate product with ionic and covalent bonds. Because of the control over particle geometry, the ceramic will be flexible, malleable, and room temperature castable. Optical and electronic properties are controllable over a wide range. Projected properties for this study are 250 MN m(-2) tensile strength, module of 25 gn m(-2), and 10% elongation. XPS and sims analyses will be performed to determine surface bonding and depth profiling.
