Preparation of hydrogenated amorphous carbon films using a microsecond-pulsed DC capacitive-coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition system operated at high frequency up to 400 kHz

Abstract

Hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H) films are deposited on silicon (Si) substrates using a high-repetition microsecond-pulsed DC plasma chemical vapor deposition (CVD) system from acetylene (C2H2) at a gas pressure of 15 Pa inside a custom-made vacuum chamber. The plasma discharge characteristics, hydrocarbon species, and the microstructure of the resulting films are examined at various pulse repetition rates from 50 to 400 kHz and a fixed duty cycle of 50%. The optical emission spectra confirmed the increase in electron excitation energy from 1.09 to 1.82 eV and the decrease in the intensity ratio of CH/C2 from 1.04 to 0.75 with increasing pulse frequency, indicating the enhanced electron impact dissociation of C2H2 gas. With increasing pulse frequency, the deposition rate gradually increased, reaching a maximum rate of 60 nm/min at 200 kHz, after which a progressive decrease was noted, whereas the deposition area was almost uniform for all the prepared films. Clear trends of increasing sp3 content (amorphization) and decreasing hydrogen (H) content in the films were observed as the pulse repetition rate increased, while most of the hydrogen atoms bonded to carbon atoms by sp3 hybridization rather than by sp2 hybridization.