The Be-based materials with many particular properties lead to an important research subject. The investigation progresses in the fabrication technologies are introduced here, including main three kinds of Be-based materials, such as Be–Cu capsule, Be_2C ablator and high-purity Be material. Compared with the pioneer workgroup on Be-based materials,the differences in Be–Cu target fabrication were described, and a grain refinement technique by an active hydrogen reaction for Be coating was proposed uniquely. Be_2C coatings were first prepared by the DC reactive magnetron sputtering with a high deposition rate(~300 nm/h). Pure polycrystalline Be_2C films with uniform microstructures,smooth surface, high density(~2.2 g · cm^3) and good optical transparency were fabricated. In addition, the high-purity Be materials with metal impurities in a ppm magnitude were fabricated by the pyrolysis of organometallic Be.
The strong anisotropy beryllium (Be) films are fabricated at different sputtering pressures by direct current magnetron sputtering. With the increase of pressure, the deposition rate of Be film first increases, and when the pressure exceeds 0.8 Pa, it gradually descends. The X-ray diffraction analysis indicates that Be film is of α-Be phase, its surface always reveals the (101) crystal plane possessing the low surface energy. As for the growth morphology of Be film, the surface is mainly characterized by the fibrous grains, while the cross section shows a transition from a columnar grain to a mixed grain consisting of a cone-shaped grain and a columnar grain as the sputtering pressure increases. The large grain fraction decays exponentially from 75.0% to 59.3% with the increase of sputtering pressure p, which can improve the grain size uniformity. The surface roughness increases due to the insufficient atom diffusion, which is comparable to its decrease due to the etching effect at p 〈 0.8 Pa, while it increases drastically at p 〉 0.8 Pa, and this increase is dominated by the atom diffusion. The electrical resistivity values of Be films range from 1.7 μΩ m to 2.7 μΩ m in the range 0.4 Pa-1.2 Pa, which is 50 times larger than the bulk resistivity.