Raman Spectroscopy of Carbon Based Films – Spectra Interpretation and Selected Applications

The investigation of the film structure of diamond-like carbon films was the main objective of this work. Films within the structural systems of hydrogenated tetrahedral amorphous carbon (ta-C:H), silicon doped hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H:Si) and nitrogen doped amorphous carbon (a-C:N) were deposited at substrate temperatures of well below 100 °C. As deposition methods ion beam deposition, reactive unbalanced magnetron sputtering of silicon as well as infrared pulsed laser deposition (IR-PLD; λ=1064 nm) were studied. By the use of Raman spectroscopy it was found, that for high kinetic ion energy film deposition processes, i.e. ion beam deposition, the structure and properties of the ta-C:H films can be controlled by the kinetic energy of carbon species involved during film growth. For deposition techniques being typically known for low ion energies like magnetron sputtering or IR-PLD, applied for deposition of a-C:H:Si and a-C:N films, process tuning involves the study of the effects of inert gas/ reactive gas flow and the type of the reactive gas.