High rate deposition of hard a-C:H films using microwave excited plasma enhanced CVD

Wear resistant, atomically smooth a-C:H films with a hardness above 25 GPa were deposited at a very high rate of 15 μm/h. The combination of high rate and high hardness values should be promising for industrial applications, even for in-line technologies. For the both mentioned precursors C2H2 and C4H8 some differences in hardness-rate relations were observed.