Propriedades mecanicas de filmes finos de carbono amorfo hidrogenados

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

1998

RESUMO

In this work we have developed a study on the mechanical properties of hydrogenated amorphous carbon films. These films have numerous potential applications like wear resistant coatings, magnetic recording disk, antireflective coatings, photoluminescent diode, etc. One of the main problems that hinders these applications is the high internal stress, usually present in films with high hardness. It is well known that high stress is responsible for the poor adhesion of hard amorphous carbon films. Therefore, the production of films with low stress is extremely important for technological application. In this work, the films were prepared in a conventional rf sputtering system through methane gas decomposition. The fi1ms produced as a function of the bias voltage possessed excellent mechanical properties: high hardness, low stress and high deposition rate. We have been able to prepare a fi1m with hardness of 17 GPa, stress as low as 0.5 GPa and with a deposition rate of 2.5 Å/s. A film with these properties can be of significant interest for technological application as hard coating. Also, we found a strong evidence that the subimplantation process, used to explain the formation of highly tetrahedral amorphous carbon films (ta-C,ta-C:H), is also valid for a-C:H films deposited by methane plasma decomposition. We proposed that the rigidity of our films is basically provided by a matrix of dispersed cross-linked Sp2 sites. The main role of the quaternary carbon (Sp3 C-C) would be to strain the cross-linked structure, providing the major contribution to the compressive stress presented in the films, and also a small improvement of the material hardness. We have also obtained films with good mechanical properties by varying the methane gas pressure. Remarkable reductions of the film stress, of about 50%, without a significant decrease of the film hardness were obtained. The thermal expansion coefficient and the biaxial modulus remained constant in alI pressure range. The increase in both Tauc gap and C-H stretching area suggests a increase of the number of C-H bonds in the film structure as the methane pressure increases. We also prepared films with hardness of 17 GPa, stress of 1.3 GPa and a deposition rate of 2 Å/s. The stress of these films are sufficient low for a possible application of these material as hard coating. Although this stress is higher than the stress of the films produced at high bias, these films have a higher value of the Tauc gap, which provides a potential application of these films as anti-reflecting coatings

ASSUNTO(S)

semicondutores amorfos carbono

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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