Zirconium dioxide is one of the most suitable materials for biomedical application. The influence of the oxygen percentage in the gas mixture on the properties of ZrO₂ thin films deposited by radio-frequency magnetron spurting (RFMS) was studied in this work.

The ZrO₂ films were deposited steel substrate Using 316L stainless as a substrate by RFMS from a pure zirconium target in Ar-O₂ gas mixture. The oxygen percentage was varied from 10 to 30% which produced a variations of structure, electrochemical and mechanical properties of the films. The deposited films were characterized by X-Rays Diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, nano-indentation and potentiodynamic polarization.

Experimental results showed the increase of  the thickness of the deposited films with the increase of the percentage of the oxygen. All structures of the films are crystalline as shown by the XRD results. The monoclinic phase is predominant in obtained films. For the study of the electrochemical properties, HANK's solution was used as the electrolyte in order to simulate natural biological conditions. Comparison between the corrosion resistance of the uncoated and coated samples showed a reduction in corrosion current density for coated samples compared to the uncoated onein addition to its improvement of the corrosion resistance and the mechanical properties with the increases of the oxygen percentage.

Keywords: ZrO₂, magnetron spurting, DRX,nano-indentation, Corrosion.