Journal of the Korean Physical Society

, Volume 62, Issue 2, pp 258–262 | Cite as

Effects of CH4 gas and substrate temperature on hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H) films fabricated using DC facing target sputtering

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Abstract

Hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H) films were deposited on soda-lime glass substrates by using a DC facing target sputtering system. The effects of the CH4 gas and the substrate temperature on the deposition rate and the properties of the film were investigated. We found that the deposition rate of the film grown under an Ar-CH4 plasma was about three times larger than that of the film grown under an Ar plasma. The CH4 gas played a role as an additional carbon precursor to increase the deposition rate, which could be seen as a CH* peak at 431 nm in the optical emission spectra of the Ar-CH4 plasma. The sp 3 fraction in the film increased gradually from 32 to 37% as the substrate temperature was increased from 100 °C to 400 °C. The optical band-gap energy of the a-C:H films varied from 3.9 to 3.98 eV, and this variation was closely related to changes in the sp3 fraction. Overall, these results indicate that the addition of CH4 gas to a-C:H film deposition enhanced the deposition rate by changing the deposition mechanism from physical to reactive.

Keywords

a-C:H Amorphous carbon CH4 Deposition rate Facing target sputtering 
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Copyright information

© The Korean Physical Society 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  • JongGoo Bhak
    • 1
  • Chan Kim
    • 1
  • Ilsu Rhee
    • 1
  • Hong Tak Kim
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of PhysicsKyungpook National UniversityDaeguKorea

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