Determination of SP3 fraction in ta-C coating using XPS and Raman spectroscopy

Abstract

The paper presents results of studies on the structure of tetrahedral amorphous carbon films (ta-C) with a thickness in the range from 20 to 280 nm, deposited using pulsed vacuum arc technique with an electromagnetic Venetian blind plasma filter. The results of the phase structure analysis, obtained using visible Raman spectroscopy and UV Raman spectroscopy methods, showed a strong dependence of the results on the presence, on the surface of synthesized thin carbon films, even of a minimum number of microparticles. The presence of microparticles in the deposited coatings strongly affects the accuracy of the measured data, used next for calculation the ID/IG, IT/IG ratios and determination of the G-peak dispersion, for all coating thicknesses, which pointed to significant diversification in sp3-bonds content in deposited films.</p