Structural evolution of amorphous carbon films upon annealing

Abstract

Currently, Amorphous Carbon (a-C) attracts a lot of attention for different mechanical and electronic applications. In this project, studies on the properties of amorphous carbon were made. Filtered Cathodic Vacuum Arc—FCVA technology was used to prepare single layer a-C films under different substrate bias conditions. As-deposited a-C films were also subjected to laser irradiation for post-treatment. Two important Raman features—D and G peak position and I(D)/I(G) that can be influenced by both deposition conditions and laser annealing were investigated by using Raman spectroscopy. Field emission properties as a function of deposition and post deposition treatments were studied in parallel plate configuration. The changing of sp2 content and sp2 cluster sizes of the annealed films as compared to as-deposited films was also studied by using Raman spectroscopy.