Interpretation of x-ray photoelectron spectra of elastic amorphous carbon nitride thin films
- Department of Applied Science, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia 23187-8795 (United States)
- Max-Planck-Institut fuer Metallforschung, Seestr. 92, 70174 Stuttgart (Germany)
- Chemical Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720 (United States)
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-2205 (United States)
We report the synthesis and characterization of amorphous carbon nitride (CN{sub x}) thin films using a direct current magnetron reactive sputter system. Nanoindentation of the CN{sub x} films and amorphous carbon films deposited under similar conditions shows the CN{sub x} films are extremely elastic, that the addition of nitrogen fundamentally changes the mechanical properties of the films, and that traditional methods of calculating the hardness and Young{close_quote}s modulus may not be valid. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) of the N(1s) and C(1s) core levels show multiple bonding arrangements. In a new interpretation of the XPS data, the two predominant N(1s) spectral features have been identified, based on comparison to reference data in the literature, as those belonging to nitrogen in a four-bond arrangement and nitrogen in a three-bond arrangement, independent of hybridization. The formation of a fourth bond allows nitrogen to substitute for C atoms in a carbon-based graphitic system without the formation of dangling bonds or unfilled states. The relationship between nitrogen incorporation in a carbon-based ring structure and measured film properties is rationalized based on previously published models. {copyright} {ital 1999 American Institute of Physics.}
- OSTI ID:
- 341350
- Journal Information:
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 74, Issue 22; Other Information: PBD: May 1999
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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