Electrophoretic deposition: An effective technique to obtain functionalized nanocoatings

Nowadays, perovskite-structured (e.g., ferrite, cobaltite, and manganite) and other oxide (e.g., titania, zirconia, and yttria) coatings are of great interest in industrial applications such microelectronics, metal corrosion protection, photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants, and electrochemical energy conversion devices. Different techniques, like pulsed laser deposition, magnetron sputtering, combustion chemical vapor deposition, chemical vapor deposition, are currently used to prepare homogeneous, thin and dense nanofilms. This work aims at exploring the electrophoretic deposition as an effective technique able to obtain functionalized nanocoatings due to its advantages with respect to the aforementioned deposition techniques. Electrophoretic deposition main advantages include simplicity of the method, high versatility, the possibility to control the structure, film thickness size scalability (from few nm up to tens of microns) and the possibility to form multilayer films with low-cost equipment at high deposition rates. In addition, to deposition time, suspension concentration, electrode distance, and applied voltage are crucial to tailor the layer thickness and uniformity.