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A review of plasma-assisted deposition methods for amorphous carbon thin and ultrathin films with a focus on the cathodic vacuum arc technique

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Abstract

Amorphous carbon (a-C) films have garnered significant attention over the past few decades, principally due to their remarkable thermophysical properties, strong adherence to various materials, and good chemical inertness. These intrinsic characteristics of a-C films have led to their use as protective overcoats in numerous applications, such as hard-disk drives, microelectromechanical systems, and biomedical implants. The significant thinning of a-C films to a few nanometers, dictated by rapid advances in device miniaturization and compactness, motivated the development of thin-film deposition methods that preserve important film attributes like uniformity, strength, and structural stability. This article provides a comprehensive assessment of the most effective deposition techniques for synthesizing ultrathin films, particularly a-C films due to their wide application range as protective overcoats in contemporary technologies, state-of-the-art microanalysis methods for ultrathin films, and the technology challenges that must be overcome for CVA to capture a bigger share of the thin-film technology marketplace.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Western Digital Technologies, Inc. The TEM/EELS studies were performed at the National Center for Electron Microscopy, Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Proposal No. 5661). The work at the Molecular Foundry was supported by the Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.

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  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

    Anurag Roy, Shengxi Wang & Kyriakos Komvopoulos

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Roy, A., Wang, S. & Komvopoulos, K. A review of plasma-assisted deposition methods for amorphous carbon thin and ultrathin films with a focus on the cathodic vacuum arc technique. Journal of Materials Research 38, 586–616 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1557/s43578-022-00868-9

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