Deposition mechanism of sputtered amorphous carbon nitride thin film

Nanostructured carbon-based membranes: nitrogen doping effects on reverse osmosis performance

“…Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that when Ar:N 2 :CH 4 mixture was used, the C = N bonding seemed to predominate over the C≡N, which was in accordance with the XPS results, as well as an increase of sp 3 carbon when CH 4 was used, presumably by the saturation of carbon chains as proposed from EELS and Raman results. Comparing these results with related previous works, 27,28 it seems that the effect of introducing CH 4 to the Ar:N 2 mixture had a substantially different effect contrasted with only H 2 , for instance. The decrease in C≡N groups when including CH 4 in the NC-based membranes could be explained by the fact that dissociated CH 4 molecules took a bigger share of the plasma kinetic energy from N 2 ions, reducing the formation of energy demanding groups like C≡N.…”

Spectroscopic investigation of the physicochemical origin of the spontaneous delamination of the sputtered amorphous carbon nitride films

“…At higher RF power, the energetic carbon sputtered particles (over 20 eV), can strike these radicals and brake the C 2 N 2 molecules. The total stress increases due to a significant loss of the CBBN bonds modifying porosity geometry and leading to a loss of the amount of all the gaseous inclusion and inducing a decrease of the compressive stress [21,22].…”

“…It was reported that C 2 N 2 is a precursor of the deposition of our RF magnetron a-CN x films [21]. At given NNP ratio (i.e., h), the amount of the energy of the incident particles (i.e., bias voltage V b ) can affect both the nature and the sizes of the particles in the plasma and so the nature of CN hybridisation state within the deposited films.…”

“…A transition, from a dense material to a less dense, is that carbon nitride films can be explained by the lower covalence of N as compared to C atoms and to the release of the internal constraints by the carbon nitride films leading to a lower mean coordinance and atom density. Based on the impurity model [20,21], the intrinsic stress of sputtered a-CN x has been analysed as a result of the competition between tensile stress, due to deposition technique (soft technique) and the nitrogen content which reduces the degree of over-constraining in the films, and compressive stress coming from pressure induced by the interaction between gaseous inclusions (O-H for example) [20][21][22]. Indeed, the low average energy of the incident particles obtained by SRIM (in the range of 10-20 eV) and the resulting low density of the deposited films, lead to low value of residual stress [21].…”

“…Based on the impurity model [20,21], the intrinsic stress of sputtered a-CN x has been analysed as a result of the competition between tensile stress, due to deposition technique (soft technique) and the nitrogen content which reduces the degree of over-constraining in the films, and compressive stress coming from pressure induced by the interaction between gaseous inclusions (O-H for example) [20][21][22]. Indeed, the low average energy of the incident particles obtained by SRIM (in the range of 10-20 eV) and the resulting low density of the deposited films, lead to low value of residual stress [21]. This tendency is accentuated by nitrogen incorporation, which reduces the degree of over-constraining in the films and leads to interlinking of Csp 2 sites by chains, with no significative clustering of the sp 2 phase in rings, according to IR data reported above.…”