X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy of carbon nitride films deposited by graphite laser ablation in a nitrogen postdischarge

Abstract

Carbon nitride thin films have been deposited on silicon substrates, using a newly developed surface wave discharge/pulsed laser deposition system. Nitrogen incorporation in the films is examined by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). It shows that interaction between the laser ablated carbon species and nitrogen atoms from the surface-wave N2 plasma enhances the incorporation of N in the carbon nitride layers, for example, up to 19% at a deposition pressure of 2 mTorr. Increasing the deposition temperature decreases nitrogen incorporation and changes the local chemical environment of nitrogen atoms.

Surface energy of the plasma treated Si incorporated diamond-like carbon films

“…5 (d)) was decomposed into seven components at 284.4, 285.2, 285.7, 286.8, 287.9, 289.7 and 292.8 eV. These peak values are attributed to C _ C, C-C, C _ N, C`N(C-O), C-N, CO bonded network and π-excitation respectively and are similar with other reports [29,40,41]. The spectrum showed that the peak intensity for sp 3 bonded carbon (C-C) has reduced significantly.…”

“…5(f)) showed the existence of four peaks at 397.3, 398.1, 399.0 and 399.7 eV. The peak at 397.3 eV are attributed to Si-N binding, while the peak position at 398.4, 399.1 and 400 eV are assigned to sp 3 C-N, sp 2 C`N and sp C-N bonded network respectively [30,40,41]. The N 1s spectrum also indicates that incorporated nitrogen was preferentially bonded with carbon as sp 2 C _ N and sp C`N compared to sp 3 C-N and Si-N bonding.…”

Cathodoluminescence and electron field emission of boron-doped a-C:N films

“…The electrical resistivities (q) of all samples were measured by a four-probe system. [16] and N-B [5] bondings, respectively. The B1s line deconvoluted into two peaks at 191.2 and 189.8 eV, which is considered to be the respective B-N and B-C bondings [18,19], suggests that the boron atoms in the film are in different bonding configurations.…”

Travelling-wave-sustained discharges

“…Many possibilities for the use of TWSDs for surface processing and film deposition [12,149,[194][195][196][197][198][199][200][201][202][203][204][205][206][207][208][209][210][211][212][213], gas detoxification [214][215][216][217], for sterilization [218], for light sources [219][220][221][222][223] and lasers [224][225][226], for panel displays [227], for particle sources [228][229][230][231][232][233][234][235][236][237][238][239], for elementary analysis through atomic spectroscopy …”