Effect of annealing temperature on the optical loss and the optical constants of RF-magnetron sputtered carbon — nickel composite films

Abstract

In this work, the optical properties of carbon — nickel films annealed at different temperatures (300–1000 °C) were investigated. The films were grown on quartz substrates by radio frequency magnetron co-sputtering at room temperature with a deposition time of 600 second. The optical transmittance spectra in the wavelength range 300–1000 nm were used to compute the refractive index by using the Swanepoel’s method. The films annealed at 500 °C showed considerable optical loss due to optical absorption by nickel atoms and to scattering caused by surface roughness. However, the film annealed at 800 °C had a very small optical loss in spite of the high surface roughness. The dispersion curves of the refractive indices of the films had anomalous dispersion in the absorption region and normal dispersion in the transparent region. The dissipation rate of the electromagnetic wave at 500 °C was shown to have maximum value.