Amorphous carbon (a-C) and several related materials (DLCs) may have ultralow friction coefficients that can be used for saving-energy applications. However, poor chemical bonding of a-C/DLC films on metallic alloys is expected, due to the stability of carbon-carbon bonds. Silicon-based intermediate layers are employed to enhance the adherence of a-C:H films on ferrous alloys, although the role of such buffer layers is not yet fully understood in chemical terms. The chemical bonding of a-C:H thin films on ferrous alloy intermediated by a nanometric SiCx:H buffer layer was analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The chemical profile was inspected by glow discharge optical emission spectroscopy (GDOES), and the chemical structure was evaluated by Raman and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy techniques. The nature of adhesion is discussed by analyzing the chemical bonding at the interfaces of the a-C:H/SiCx:H/ferrous alloy sandwich structure. The adhesion phenomenon is ascribed to specifically chemical bonding character at the buffer layer. Whereas carbon-carbon (C-C) and carbon-silicon (C-Si) bonds are formed at the outermost interface, the innermost interface is constituted mainly by silicon-iron (Si-Fe) bonds. The oxygen presence degrades the adhesion up to totally delaminate the a-C:H thin films. The SiCx:H deposition temperature determines the type of chemical bonding and the amount of oxygen contained in the buffer layer.

We report on a new route to grow epitaxial copper (Cu) ultra-thin films (up to 150 nm thick) at ambient temperature on Si(001) wafers covered with native oxide without any prior chemical etching or plasma cleaning of the substrate. It consists of a single-step deposition process using high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) and substrate biasing. For a direct current (DC) substrate bias voltage of −130 V, Cu/Si heteroepitaxial growth is achieved by HiPIMS following the Cu(001) [100]//Si(001) [110] orientation, while under the same average deposition conditions, but using conventional DC magnetron sputtering, polycrystalline Cu films with [111] preferred orientation are deposited. In addition, the intrinsic stress has been measured in situ during growth by real-time monitoring of the wafer curvature. For this particular HiPIMS case, the stress is slightly compressive (−0.1 GPa), but almost fully relaxes after growth is terminated. As a result of epitaxy, the Cu surface morphology exhibits a regular pattern consisting of square-shaped mounds with a lateral size of typically 150 nm. For all samples, X-ray diffraction pole figures and scanning/transmission electron microscopy reveal the formation of extensive twinning of the Cu {111} planes.