Deposition of boron-carbon-nitrogen ternary thin films by ion-beam-assisted excimer ablation of B 4 C target

Abstract

Boron-Carbon-Nilrogen thin films were deposited by laser ablation of B4C target under nitrogen ion-beam bombardment The deposited thin films were set for X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and ellipsometry measurements. The results showed that, in the ternary thin films, boron, carbon and nitrogen species were chemically bound to each other instead of simle mixtures. The B-C bonds were broken by the introduced energetic nitrogen ions and, subsequently, C-N and B-N bonds can be fonned. The ellipsometry measurement gave the optical band gap ofO.48 eV for the thin films deposited under 50 eVnitrogen ion beam bombardment. According to the analyses, the nitrogen ion beam energy should be lower than 100 eV in most cases.