Structural Variation of Transition Metal - Fullerene Thin Films Modified by Thermal Annealing and Ion or Laser Beam Bombardment

Abstract

In this paper, we have inspected the structural morphology of novel composite materials - transition metal (TM) (Ni, Ti) / fullerene (C60) thin films, prepared at room temperature (RT) or 500°C, and modified by ion-irradiation and/or thermal annealing. The hybrid films were synthesized by alternative or simultaneous deposition of the immiscible TM and C60 phases. As deposited (at RT) the hybrid systems were thermodynamically unstable and the internal stress induced lengthy phase separation. Co-deposition at 500°C resulted in the formation of a large-scale pattern structure. By high temperature annealing of the multilayer’s a new morphology could be synthesized. In addition, high-fluence ion-irradiation induces C60 fragmentation that has a strong impact on the final shaping of the resulted morphology.