Characterization of Tetrahedral Amorphous Carbon Film with Various Thickness by High Through-put Method

doi:10.15541/jim20180027

Abstract

Abstract:

Materials Genome Initiative (MGI), which greatly accelerates the research and development progress of new materials with reduced cost, has received widespread attention in recent years. In this report, high-quality ta-C films with different thicknesses, ranging from 4.7 nm to 183 nm, were high through-put deposited by a home-built double 45° bent filtered cathodic vacuum arc system, which was realized by the control of carbon plasma beam and substrate position. Meanwhile, the effects of film thickness on surface roughness, microstructure, and carbon atomic bond were investigated by atomic force microscope, spectroscopic ellipsometry, Raman spectra and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Results show that the high through-put method by regulation of carbon plasma beam and selective placement of substrate enables to prepare ta-C films with various thicknesses. Particularly, the prepared ta-C films show almost constant smooth surface (R_a=(0.38±0.02) nm) and the value of Disp(G) regardless of the thickness changes, revealing the unchanged size of sp² cluster and sp³ content with different thicknesses. Furthermore XPS results confirm that sp³ relative content is kept at (55±5)%. In addition, the optical band gaps of ta-C films with different thicknesses remain at (1.02±0.08) eV. These results could provide new insight into design and fabricate the controlled microstructure and optical property of ta-C film with different thicknesses.

Key words: tetrahedral amorphous carbon film, high through-put, thickness, microstructure, optical band gap

CLC Number:

TQ127

WEI Jing, LI Han-Chao, KE Pei-Ling, WANG Ai-Ying. Characterization of Tetrahedral Amorphous Carbon Film with Various Thickness by High Through-put Method[J]. Journal of Inorganic Materials, 2018, 33(11): 1173-1178.

Figures/Tables 7

Fig. 1 Schematic diagram of FCVA system (a) and sample position (b)

Table 1 Parameter of arc plasma etching and deposition for ta-C films

Process	Duct voltage/V	Arc current/A	Bias voltage/V	Ar flux/sccm	Time/min
Arc plasma etching	10.0	50.0	-300	20.0	5.0
Film deposition	10.0	50.0	-80	3.0	15/30/45

Fig. 2 Thicknesses (a) and growth rates (b) changes of different samples (The dotted lines faciliate observation)

Fig. 3 Variations of the average surface roughness with film thickness

Fig. 4 UV Raman spectra (a), IT/IG (b), Disp(G) (c) of ta-C films with various film thickness.

Fig. 5 XPS C1s core level spectra (a) and sp3 content (c) of ta-C films with various film thickness, typical C1s core level spectrum of ta-C film (41.3 nm) (b)

Fig. 6 Typical extinction coefficient (a) and optical bandgap (b) spectra of ta-C film with thickness of 41.3 nm, optical band gap of ta-C with different film thicknesses (c)

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