TY - JOUR

T1 - Hydrogen and disorder in diamond-like carbon

AU - Kleinsorge, B.

AU - Rodil, S.E.

AU - Adamopoulos, George

AU - Robertson, J.

AU - Grambole, D.

AU - Fukarek, W.

PY - 2001

Y1 - 2001

N2 - Diamond-like carbon is a system of rather high disorder as it has a wide optical absorption tail and a high density of paramagnetic defects. The defect density remains high even in DLCs containing 30-60% hydrogen, so hydrogen does not appear to passivate defects well unlike in a-Si:H. To investigate the role of hydrogen on the disorder in DLCs we have investigated the effect of low concentrations of hydrogen on the disorder in ta-C, by introducing 10(-6)-10(-3) mbar hydrogen into the deposition of ta-C by filtered cathodic vacuum are (FCVA), which corresponds to 0.1-15 at.% hydrogen in the films. Higher pressures of hydrogen reduces the ionisation leading to sp(2) bonding, and ultimately the thermalisation of the plasma leads to nanotubes and fullerenes. The deposited ta-C:H films were investigated by electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), Raman spectroscopy, optical measurements, electronic transport and N-15 resonant nuclear reaction analysis. Plasma characterisation with a retarding field analyser showed that the ion current density remains nearly unchanged in the pressure range used to deposit the films. Raman measurements indicate the onset of clustering of sp(2) sites when the hydrogen pressure exceeds 2 x 10(-4) mbar. We find that small amounts of hydrogen increase the optical gap up to 2X10(-6) mbar hydrogen pressure, and then the band gap decreases continuously. The absorption tail sharpens by the addition of hydrogen, as measured by photothermal deflection spectroscopy (PDS) and thus confirms the Raman measurements that suggest that the order in the material increases with increasing hydrogen content.

AB - Diamond-like carbon is a system of rather high disorder as it has a wide optical absorption tail and a high density of paramagnetic defects. The defect density remains high even in DLCs containing 30-60% hydrogen, so hydrogen does not appear to passivate defects well unlike in a-Si:H. To investigate the role of hydrogen on the disorder in DLCs we have investigated the effect of low concentrations of hydrogen on the disorder in ta-C, by introducing 10(-6)-10(-3) mbar hydrogen into the deposition of ta-C by filtered cathodic vacuum are (FCVA), which corresponds to 0.1-15 at.% hydrogen in the films. Higher pressures of hydrogen reduces the ionisation leading to sp(2) bonding, and ultimately the thermalisation of the plasma leads to nanotubes and fullerenes. The deposited ta-C:H films were investigated by electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), Raman spectroscopy, optical measurements, electronic transport and N-15 resonant nuclear reaction analysis. Plasma characterisation with a retarding field analyser showed that the ion current density remains nearly unchanged in the pressure range used to deposit the films. Raman measurements indicate the onset of clustering of sp(2) sites when the hydrogen pressure exceeds 2 x 10(-4) mbar. We find that small amounts of hydrogen increase the optical gap up to 2X10(-6) mbar hydrogen pressure, and then the band gap decreases continuously. The absorption tail sharpens by the addition of hydrogen, as measured by photothermal deflection spectroscopy (PDS) and thus confirms the Raman measurements that suggest that the order in the material increases with increasing hydrogen content.

KW - diamond-like carbon

KW - hydrogen

KW - optical absorption

KW - TETRAHEDRAL AMORPHOUS-CARBON

KW - PLASMA BEAM SOURCE

KW - RAMAN-SPECTRA

U2 - 10.1016/S0925-9635(00)00421-0

DO - 10.1016/S0925-9635(00)00421-0

M3 - Journal article

VL - 10

SP - 965

EP - 969

JO - Diamond and Related Materials

JF - Diamond and Related Materials

SN - 0925-9635

IS - 3-7

ER -