Amorphous-tetrahedral diamondlike carbon layered structures resulting from film growth energetics

Journal Article · Sat Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 1998 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.121992· OSTI ID:639156

Siegal, M P; Barbour, J C; Provencio, P N; Tallant, D R; Friedmann, T A ^[1]

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1. Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87185-1421 (United States)

High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) shows that amorphous-tetrahedral diamondlike carbon (a-tC) films grown by pulsed-laser deposition on Si(100) consist of three-to-four layers, depending on the growth energetics. We estimate the density of each layer using both HRTEM image contrast and Rutherford backscattering spectrometry. The first carbon layer and final surface layer have relatively low density. The bulk of the film between these two layers has higher density. For films grown under the most energetic conditions, there exists a superdense a-tC layer between the interface and bulk layers. The density of all four layers, and the thickness of the surface and interfacial layers, correlate well with the energetics of the depositing carbon species. {copyright} {ital 1998 American Institute of Physics.}

• OSTI ID: 639156
• Journal Information: Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 73, Issue 6; Other Information: PBD: Aug 1998
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CARBON
THIN FILMS
TRANSMISSION ELECTRON MICROSCOPY
AMORPHOUS STATE
STRUCTURAL CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
DENSITY
RUTHERFORD SCATTERING
SILICON
INTERFACES