Carbon films deposited by MCECR plasma sputtering

The mirror-confinement-type electron cyclotron resonance (MCECR) plasma source has high plasma density and high electron temperature, and it is quite useful in many plasma processing, and has been used for etching and thin-film deposition. In this paper, the carbon films about 50 nm thickness were deposited on Si (1 0 0) by MCECR plasma sputtering the sintered carbon target with the argon plasma, and its properties were studied. The bonding structure of the film was analyzed by using the X-ray photoelectron spectropscopy (XPS) and the nanostructure was evaluated with the high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). The tribological properties (friction coefficient, wear rate, and wear life) of the film was investigated by using the pin-on-disk tribometer under the conditions that the normal load is 1 N and the sliding velocity is 0.05 m/s. The nanohardness of the films was measured by using the nanoindenter under conditions that the maximum displacement is 30 nm and the maximum load is 500 μN. The optical properties were measured by using the ellipsometer. The residual stress was measured with a surface profilometer. The surface morphology was studied by using the atomic force microscope (AFM).