Growth process of hydrogenated amorphous carbon films synthesized by atmospheric pressure plasma enhanced CVD using nitrogen and helium as a dilution gas

Abstract

Hydrogenated amorphous carbon films with various thicknesses were synthesized by dielectric barrier discharge-based plasma deposition under atmospheric pressure diluted with nitrogen (N2) and helium (He) at various pulse frequencies. The C2H2/N2 film showed cauliflower-like-particles that grew bigger with the increase in film’s thickness. At 5 kHz, the film with a thickness of 2.7 µm and smooth surface was synthesized. On the other hand, the films synthesized from C2H2/He had a smooth surface and was densely packed with domed particles. The domed particles extended with the increase in the film thickness, enabling it to grow successfully to 37 µm with a smooth surface.

The effect of LFG plasma sputtering power on hardness of carbon thin films on SKD11 steel using target material from battery carbon rods

“…In argon gas the dominant influence in plasma sputtering is a physical reaction. Argon atoms are heavy atoms with low reactive properties, so it would be more effective if used to target materials for deposition of thin films [8,11].…”

“…Amorphous carbon layer has been widely used in industry and research. The amorphous carbon layer has a wide variety of properties of mechanical, physical, biomedical, and tribological so that it can be utilized in broad applications as well [6][7][8]. Carbon atoms that have sp 3 hybridization have stronger bonds, so as to increase the hardness value of the thin layer of carbon material [7].…”

“…Previous research of carbon films were successfully synthesized using CVD plasma, hollow-cathode plasma and plasma sputtering [8]. Plasma sputtering has several advantages when compared to the other method, such as high deposition rate, low substrate temperature, and produce best quality thin film at lower substrate temperatures [10,11].…”

“…The frequency is suitable for the plasma sputtering technique because the 40 kHz LFG generator has the highest ion density value of the two other plasma generator frequencies, 13.36 MHz and 2.45 GHz, so that more plasma particles are formed per square inch than [11]. Changes of ion density cause changes in ion bombardment of the target material for deposition of thin films [8,10].…”

Carbon ‘fluffy’ aggregates produced by helium–hydrocarbon high-pressure plasmas as analogues to interstellar dust

“…Compared to other studies involving AC voltage with high frequency DBD ethylene plasma (Fanelli et al 2005), the deposition rates for our alkane plasmas are ten times smaller. Using acetylene as gas feed precursor, Mori et al (2016) observed that the hydrogenated amorphous carbon poly- Figure 3. FTIR spectra of the He/C n H 2n+2 gas mixtures, sampled before and after 6 hours of DBD plasma processing.…”