Variation of bonding structure near the surface of carbon nitride films

✍ Scribed by Liudi Jiang; A.G Fitzgerald; M.J Rose

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 171 KB
• Volume: 158
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0169-4332
• DOI: 10.1016/s0169-4332(00)00028-3

✦ Synopsis

Ž

. Amorphous carbon nitride a-C:N films were deposited by reactive direct current magnetron sputtering of graphite using Ž . a gaseous mixture of Ar and N . X-ray photo electron spectroscopy analysis XPS showed that there is an optimum volume 2 ratio of nitrogen:argon in the sputter gas that results in a maximum content of incorporated nitrogen in the films. By using different take-off angles in XPS experiments, the variation gradient of bonding structure near the surface of a-C:N films has also been studied. In the surface layer of the a-C:N films, it was found that some of the initially formed b-C N -like phase 3 4 transforms to a graphite-like carbon-nitrogen phase. This structural change is driven by the nitrogen in the sputter gas during deposition.