Improvement of adhesion of hydrogen-free DLC film by employing an interlayer of tungsten carbide

Abstract

Materials with poor adhesion present a problem for the application of diamond-like carbon (DLC) films. As a method for solving this problem, there is a technique that deposits an interlayer of metal between the DLC film and substrate. A tungsten carbide film (W-C film) is used as the interlayer. In this study, the effect of introducing the W-C interlayer on the adhesion of the DLC film was investigated. The W-C films were deposited using two types of cemented tungsten carbides (WCs) as the cathode, one containing Co (WC-Co) and the other containing Ti (WC-Ti), as a binder for forming the cathode shape. It is necessary to control the film thickness of the interlayer to introduce the interlayer to the DLC film. The film thickness control of W-C films became possible by using a discharge counter. DLC films were deposited using a bias voltage of -100 V. The film thicknesses of the W-C interlayer and DLC film at the time of investigating adhesion were 30 nm and 300 nm, respectively. The result of the tape-peel...