DLC-Based Coatings Obtained by Low-Frequency Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (LFPECVD) in Cyclohexane, Principle and Examples

Abstract

The LFPECVD (Low-Frequency Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition) technique is now used on an industrial scale for the deposition of carbon-based coatings for several applications. This short review recalled the main principles of LFPECVD and provided examples of DLC-based films. The main differences between low-frequency (LF) and radio-frequency (RF) discharges were also recalled here and examples of deposition and characterization of carbon-based films were proposed. The influence of the bias voltage or the temperature of the active electrode on the deposition rate and the structure of a-C: H films obtained in cyclohexane/hydrogen mixtures was first discussed. Next, the properties of carbon-based films doped with silicon were described and, finally, it was shown that multilayer architectures make it possible to reduce the stresses without altering their tribological properties.

Investigation of Tribological Behaviour on DLC Coatings for AA5051 using DC Sputtering

“…Samples are heated for resin stabilization. The Agilent Technologies machine is utilized for Berkovich indenter indentations in nanoindentation processes [23]. The samples are scratch tested to determine the adherence of the produced DLC coatings.…”

Effects of Different Silicon Substrates on the Structure and Properties of Deposited Diamond‐like Carbon Films

“…Hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H), known as diamondlike carbon (DLC), has been extensively studied over the past few decades. [1][2][3][4][5] Benefiting from its unique microstructure consisting of sp 2 -bonded carbon clusters interconnected with sp 3bonded sites, [6,7] DLC film has a series of excellent physical and chemical properties, such as infrared band transparency, high hardness, wear resistance, small friction coefficient, stable chemical properties, corrosion resistance, small thermal expansion coefficient, high thermal conductivity, high resistivity, good optical transparency, biocompatibility, etc., making DLC films an ideal wear-resistant material for optics, [8,9] magnetic memory disks, [10,11] metal tools, [12,13] and biomedical prostheses. [14,15] We divide hydrogenated amorphous carbon into four categories: hydrogenated tetrahedral amorphous carbon film (ta-C:H), the sp 3 content of the ta-C:H film can be up to 70% [16] ; polymer-like films (H-PLC); a-C:H films with the highest hydrogen content (40-50%), which are soft and low density; [17] and diamond-like a-C: H film (H-DLC); this kind of film has medium H content (20-40%).…”

“…Hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a‐C:H), known as diamond‐like carbon (DLC), has been extensively studied over the past few decades. [ 1–5 ] Benefiting from its unique microstructure consisting of sp 2 ‐bonded carbon clusters interconnected with sp 3 ‐bonded sites, [ 6,7 ] DLC film has a series of excellent physical and chemical properties, such as infrared band transparency, high hardness, wear resistance, small friction coefficient, stable chemical properties, corrosion resistance, small thermal expansion coefficient, high thermal conductivity, high resistivity, good optical transparency, biocompatibility, etc., making DLC films an ideal wear‐resistant material for optics, [ 8,9 ] magnetic memory disks, [ 10,11 ] metal tools, [ 12,13 ] and biomedical prostheses. [ 14,15 ]…”

Comparative Study on the Scratch and Wear Resistance of Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) Coatings Deposited on X42Cr13 Steel of Different Surface Conditions

“…The group of the plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) techniques involves several types of processes, such as the radio-frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (RFPECVD) [34,35] and the low-frequency plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition LFPECVD [36][37][38]. For industrial purposes, RFPECVD and LFPECVD are the most widely used methods due to their versatility in scale [39] and coating structure, e.g., for doped or multilayered DLC systems.…”