Kinetics of ion beam deposition of carbon at room temperature

Abstract

Growth rates of carbon films grown by ion beam deposition using methane gas were measured in situ as a function of deposition conditions. The methane pressure dependence of the growth rate was used to measure the cross-section for charge exchange. Variations in deposition rate per incident energetic particle found for each ion energy were related to ion current density. It was found that rates of growth per incident energetic specie were (i) largest for the smallest current densities, (ii) decreased monotonically with increasing current density, and (iii) were consistently larger than can be explained by deposition directly from the energetic flux alone. These observations were interpreted in terms of irradiation-induced surface interactions which promote chemisorption of methane physisorbed from the ambient atmosphere.