Thermal evolution of carbon in annealed Co/C soft x-ray multilayers

Abstract

The structures of the carbon sublayers in the annealed Co/C soft x-ray multilayers fabricated using a dual-facing-target sputtering system have been characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and Raman spectroscopy (RS). The results suggest that the structural variations in the carbon layers can be roughly divided into three stages, i.e. ordering, crystalline and grain growth stages. In the ordering stage with annealing temperatures below 400 °C, the upward shift of D and G lines in Raman spectra indicates that the amorphous carbon layers are changing from ones with bond-angle disorder and fourfold-bonding only to ones containing threefold-bonding. In the crystalline stage, the amorphous carbon layers in the as-deposited multilayers crystallize to graphite crystallites in the annealing temperature range of 500–600 °C. The rapid increase in the intensity ratio of D line to G line and dramatic decrease in linewidth further confirm this substantial structural change. In the grain growth stage, the specimens are annealed at temperatures higher than 700 °C. The decrease in the intensity ratio implies a growth in the graphite crystallite dimensions, which is consistent with the XRD and TEM results.