Effect of deposition time on the growth mode and stoichiometric of amorphous boron carbide thin films deposited by electron beam evaporation

Abstract

Electron beam evaporation (EBE) deposition technique was employed to prepare amorphous boron carbide thin films at room temperature. In this work, a new contribution to the knowledge of deposition time dependence of stoichiometric was reported. The results indicated that the thickness of the amorphous boron carbide thin films were approximately 87–830 nm with a deposition time of 20–120 min. The growth mode of the film is layer-island growth. The XPS analysis demonstrated the B/C atomic ratio increased with the increasing of deposition time due to the different evaporation behaviors between B and C atoms in EBE processes. The stoichiometry of amorphous boron carbide thin films was controlled in the range of 1.3 ± 0.1–3.1 ± 0.1 via electron beam evaporation by the deposition time of 20–120 min. This work will be useful to advance the application of amorphous boron carbide thin films as an ICF ablator, and has a certain reference value for electron beams to evaporate other compounds.