X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy study of the atomic structure change of amorphous carbon films annealed in vacuum

Abstract
Amorphous carbon films deposited at near room temperature on Si substrates by a direct current plasma chemical vapor deposition technique using CH4 gas have been annealed in vacuum. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements show that, as the annealing temperature increases from room temperature to 300 °C, a significant shift (0.5 eV) of the C 1s electron binding energy is observed. The observed shift may be the indication of an atomic structure change of the amorphous films upon the thermal annealing. On the other hand, a large shift in the sp2 bond peaks of the Raman spectra only occurs at annealing temperatures higher than 300 °C, which may be the indication of a structural change of the amorphous carbon films by the annealing. A two stage stress release mechanism is suggested: One for the atomic structure change and one for the film structure change.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: