Materials

Structural and mechanical properties of diamond-like carbon films deposited by an anode layer source

Publication from Materials

Kahn M., Cekada M., Schöberl T., Berghauser R., Mitterer C., Bauer C., Waldhauser W., Brandstätter E.

Thin Solid Films 517 (24), pp. 6502-6507, 2009

Abstract:

An anode layer source is a special ion gun, which can be fed with carbon precursors like acetylene to deposit hard and highly defect-free hydrogenated diamond-like carbon films at room temperature. The present study focuses on the influence of the process parameters - discharge voltage, process pressure and acetylene flow - on structure and mechanical properties of the deposited films. Raman spectra show that an increased discharge voltage yields decreased structural disorder, i.e. a lower C–C sp3 hybridised fraction of carbon atoms in the films. By an elevation of the discharge voltage from 1 to 3 kV the full width at half maximum of the G-band decreases from 194±0.2 cm-1 to 183±0.7 cm-1. Films deposited at the lowest discharge voltage show in accordance to the spectroscopic data the highest nanohardness (36±1 GPa), stress (-2.34±0.2 GPa) and reduced elastic modulus (180±4 GPa).

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