Thermal stability of plasma deposited thin films of hydrogenated carbon–nitrogen alloys

Citations Over TimeTop 10% of 1999 papers

Abstract

The need to grow high quality semiconducting hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H) thin films to allow n-type electronic doping by nitrogenation has lead us to deposit films with low paramagnetic defect density (1017 cm−3). The films were grown on the earthed electrode of a radio frequency driven plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition system using methane, helium and a range of nitrogen concentrations as the precursor gases. The deposited films are shown to be polymer like. Changes in the chemical structure and relative bond fractions as a function of the nitrogen flow rate into the plasma chamber and ex situ annealing are reported. Particular attention is paid to changes in the film structure after annealing at 100 °C, since an increase in the E04 optical band gap is observed as a function of nitrogen flow after the anneal. This suggests a decrease in the defect density of the film.

Related Papers

• → Nanoindentation and nanowear tests on amorphous carbon films(1996)32 cited
• → Vapor Deposition Synthesis Of Diamond Films(1986)37 cited
• → Structure and tribological performance of carbon overlayer films (for magnetic media)(1993)17 cited
• → Growth mechanism of diamond-like amorphous carbon films(1989)8 cited
• → Fluctuation Microscopy Studies of Amorphous Diamond-Like Carbon Films(2000)