Structural, Nanomechanical, and Field Emission Properties of Amorphous Carbon Films Having Embedded Nanocrystallites Deposited by Filtered Anodic Jet Carbon Arc Technique

Abstract

This paper reports the effect of substrate bias on the structural, nanomechanical, and field emission properties of amorphous carbon films having embedded nanocrystallites (a-C:nc films) deposited by filtered anodic jet carbon arc technique. X-ray diffraction results exhibit predominantly an amorphous nature of the films. High-resolution transmission electron microscope images showed the amorphous nature of the films with nanocrystallites embedded in the amorphous matrix. Ultrafine nanograined microstructures with average grain size between 20 and 30 nm are observed throughout the film with a majority of the grains of single crystallites. A strong influence of substrate bias has been observed on the structural, nanomechanical, and field emission properties. Maximum nanohardness (H) of 58.3 GPa, elastic modulus (E) of 426.2 GPa, and H/E of 0.136 have been observed in a-C:nc films deposited at −60 V substrate bias which showed 82.6% sp3 content.