The application of the cathodic arc to plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition of carbon

Yin, Y.; McKenzie, David R.; Zou, Jin; Das, Anita

doi:10.1063/1.362649

Cited by 16 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…9 There is much interest in all of these films due to their unique mechanical properties. 7,10 Recently, Yin et al 11 have found cauliflower-like growths ͑nanocrys-tals͒ which cannot be indexed to graphite in their FCVA deposited films, which are considered to be precursors for diamond growth. 12 However, there has been no published literature on the observation of diamond nanocrystallites in ta-C films deposited using the FCVA.…”

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confidence: 99%

Nanocrystallites in tetrahedral amorphous carbon films

Ravi

Silva

et al. 1996

Applied Physics Letters

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The microstructure of filtered cathodic vacuum arc deposited tetrahedral amorphous carbon films is studied as a function of ion energy. An optimum energy window in the density and C-C sp 3 content at an ion energy of ϳ90 eV observed in this study. It is shown that the density of the amorphous carbon films are closely related to the sp 3 content. The observation of nanocrystals embedded in the amorphous carbon matrix is reported. Most of the crystals observed by transmission electron microscopy can be indexed to graphite, but some of the crystals can be indexed to cubic diamond. The chemical composition of the crystals is analyzed using electron energy loss spectroscopy ͑EELS͒. The only discernible EELS edge is that of C at an energy of 285 eV. © 1996 American Institute of Physics. ͓S0003-6951͑96͒03230-5͔Filtered cathodic vacuum arc ͑FCVA͒ deposited carbon films have the unique property of producing high quality diamondlike amorphous carbon films with a high sp 3 content. 1,2 The film properties are critically dependent on the ion energy of the species. The carbon plasma initiated from a graphite target by the vacuum arc is sustained during the deposition and macroparticles associated with the arc process are filtered using a 90°bend toroidal solenoid in the deposition system. We have investigated the relationship between the bonding structure in the films and the ion energy of the C species. At a particular threshold ion energy the particles found in the tetrahedral amorphous carbon ͑ta-C͒ films have been studied using transmission electron microscopy ͑TEM͒ and electron energy loss spectroscopy ͑EELS͒. Although there are reports that diamond nanocrystallites have been observed in diamondlike carbon ͑DLC͒ films deposited under low temperature and low pressure conditions, 3-6 direct observation of diamond crystals in deposition techniques that do not operate at high temperatures and high pressures is not common. This is because graphite is the stable crystalline form of carbon under these conditions.Highly tetrahedrally bonded ta-C films have also been deposited using laser initiated vacuum arcs, and pulsed cathodic arcs, 7,8 and hydrogenated ta-C films deposited using a plasma beam source. 9 There is much interest in all of these films due to their unique mechanical properties. 7,10 Recently, Yin et al. 11 have found cauliflower-like growths ͑nanocrys-tals͒ which cannot be indexed to graphite in their FCVA deposited films, which are considered to be precursors for diamond growth. 12 However, there has been no published literature on the observation of diamond nanocrystallites in ta-C films deposited using the FCVA. In this letter, we report on the observation of nanocrystallites that index to diamond, deposited under low temperature/low pressure conditions using such a system.The FCVA films were deposited with a base pressure of 2ϫ10 Ϫ6 Torr which increased to 1ϫ10 Ϫ5 Torr during deposition. The substrate bias is varied from 0 to Ϫ120 V, while the arc current remained constant at ϳ60 A. A toroidal magnetic field ...

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confidence: 99%

Nanocrystallites in tetrahedral amorphous carbon films

Ravi

Silva

et al. 1996

Applied Physics Letters

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“…Moreover, the ECR plasma remote from the substrate permits decoupled control of the energies of the ions striking the substrate by radio frequency ͑rf͒ biasing, which plays an important role in determining the film properties. [10][11][12] In this letter, vertically aligned multiwalled CNTs ͑MWNTs͒ are synthesized at temperatures as low as 400°C using ECR-CVD with rf biasing to the substrates. Our previous study 13 already showed that the morphologies of MWNTs varied with the negative self-bias voltages in rf biasing to the substrates, which resulted in the different degree of ordering of graphene layers in the CNT walls.…”

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confidence: 99%

Field emission characteristics of multiwalled carbon nanotubes grown at low temperatures using electron cyclotron resonance chemical vapor deposition

Woo

Jeon

Han

et al. 2003

Journal of Vacuum Science &Amp; Technology B: Microelectronics and Nanometer Structures Processing, Measurement, and Phenomena

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Vertically aligned multiwalled carbon nanotubes were synthesized by electron cyclotron resonance chemical vapor deposition on Ni-coated glass substrates at temperatures as low as 400 °C. Negative self-biases were induced to the substrates by radio frequency plasma to give ion bombardment to the growing surface. An increase of self-bias voltages from −50 to −200 V resulted in an evolution of the microstructures from amorphous carbon to nanorods, subsequently to nanotubes. Nanotubes grown above −150 V were more straight in morphology and better in crystallinity than nanorods grown at −100 V. In the field emission (FE) measurements, the electric fields to obtain 1 μA/cm2 were 4.6 and 11.1 V/μm for the nanorods and nanotubes grown at −100 and −200 V, respectively. The emission areas, calculated from the Fowler–Nordheim plots, were much larger in the nanorods than the nanotubes. It is considered that a larger amount of crystalline defects in nanorods plays a major role in improving their FE characteristics.

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