This work investigates the evolution of the structural, mechanical and tribological properties of amorphous carbon films (a-C ) undergoing thermal annealing. Two different types of a-C film were studied: hard, stressed and dense films, henceforth called ‘diamond-like’, and soft, more relaxed and less dense films, called ‘polymer-like’. The two sets of films were deposited by dc magnetron sputtering at 0.36 and 1.4 Pa argon plasma pressures, respectively, and both were annealed in vacuum for 1 h at temperatures between 300 and 700°C. Raman results provided indications of a remarkable increase of the sp2 hybridized domains, that occurs mainly at temperatures higher than 400°C for the diamond-like films and in a continuous way for the polymer-like films. The friction coefficient of both types of film approaches the same value with increasing temperature, whereas the surface roughness is nearly constant. For diamond-like films, the hardness and compressive internal stress are nearly constant up to 500°C, and then undergo a fast decrease. In contrast, the hardness of the polymer-like film continuously decreases with temperature, whereas the compressive stress remains constant.

Comparative study of anneal-induced modifications of amorphous carbon films deposited by dc magnetron sputtering at different argon plasma pressures

MARIOTTO, Gino;
2000-01-01

Abstract

This work investigates the evolution of the structural, mechanical and tribological properties of amorphous carbon films (a-C ) undergoing thermal annealing. Two different types of a-C film were studied: hard, stressed and dense films, henceforth called ‘diamond-like’, and soft, more relaxed and less dense films, called ‘polymer-like’. The two sets of films were deposited by dc magnetron sputtering at 0.36 and 1.4 Pa argon plasma pressures, respectively, and both were annealed in vacuum for 1 h at temperatures between 300 and 700°C. Raman results provided indications of a remarkable increase of the sp2 hybridized domains, that occurs mainly at temperatures higher than 400°C for the diamond-like films and in a continuous way for the polymer-like films. The friction coefficient of both types of film approaches the same value with increasing temperature, whereas the surface roughness is nearly constant. For diamond-like films, the hardness and compressive internal stress are nearly constant up to 500°C, and then undergo a fast decrease. In contrast, the hardness of the polymer-like film continuously decreases with temperature, whereas the compressive stress remains constant.
2000
Amorphous carbon films, dc magnetron sputtering, argon plasma pressure.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11562/435021
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