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.
Highlights
Accepted: 1 October 2021Carbon-based films are innovative materials that have been merged as an alternative solution of silicon due to their electrical and mechanical properties [1,2]
Among the different carbon-based films, DiamondLike Carbon (DLC) coatings are widely used in various industries such as automotive [4], electronics [5], biomedical [6], and aerospace [7]
DLC coatings can be deposited by different methods: magnetron sputtering [20,21,22], High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering (HiPIMS) [23,24,25], Radio-Frequency Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (RFPECVD) [26,27], and LFPECVD [28,29,30,31,32,33,34]
Summary
Carbon-based films are innovative materials that have been merged as an alternative solution of silicon due to their electrical and mechanical properties [1,2]. DLC is a metastable form of amorphous carbon with sp2 -bonded clusters interconnected by a random network of sp3 -bonded atomic sites [19] It has a combination of properties: chemical inertness, low friction coefficient, high hardness, and good wear resistance. DLC coatings can be deposited by different methods: magnetron sputtering [20,21,22], High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering (HiPIMS) [23,24,25], Radio-Frequency Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (RFPECVD) [26,27], and LFPECVD [28,29,30,31,32,33,34] These two last technologies are widely used in industry because of their capacity to be implemented at any type of scale. The work provided examples of DLC-based coatings deposited using this technology: a-C:H; Si doped a-C:H by LFPECVD co-deposition from two precursors and multilayer materials
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