Transitions of Boron Carbide to B-C-N Thin Film

Abstract

AbstractBoron carbon nitride (B-C-N) thin films are attractive due to their potential as hard coatings and as semiconductors with varying band gap. Both B-C-N (BC0.24N0.24) thin films and boron carbide (B4C) thin films were deposited by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering at room temperature. Also, the transition of boron carbide to B-C-N was studied by bombarding the boron carbide thin film by ∼1 uA/cm2 4 keV N+ ions. The results show that the UV-Vis transmittance of B-C-N thin films is better than that of amorphous boron carbide and both B-C and B-N bonds exist in our B-C-N thin films. The nitrogen in our B-C-N thin films bonded with boron causes the XPS B 1s core level to shift 2 eV from that in the B4C boron carbide thin film. Ion bombardment shows that the N+ ion primarily reacts with boron to form B-N and this reaction causes the environmental change of carbon in the thin film and then the XPS C 1s core level to shift to 283.5 eV from 282.8 eV.