Tetrahedral amorphous carbon films have been prepared by magnetic filtered plasma deposition system. The samples were deposited with negative bias voltage V b range from +20 V to -95 V. The relative fraction of sp 3-bonded carbon in these films was qualitatively and quantitatively estimated by a fitting of the Raman and XPS spectra, respectively. Raman results show that the sp 3 fraction of the films deposited in the range from -10 V to -50 V was estimated to be more than 80%. The C 1s spectra were consistently decomposed into the two gaussian components, one is at 284.4±0.1 eV corresponding to sp 2-hybridized bonds, and another is at 285.2±0.1 eV corresponding to sp 3-hybridized bond. The sp 3 content can be quantitatively calculated from the integrated area of the respective gaussian peak divided by the total area of the spectra. The comparison of XPS with Raman analysis, the trend of qualitative variation of sp 3 content with V b is in agreement. We concluded that XPS analysis is a useful method for quantitatively calculating sp 3 content in hydrogen-free tetrahedral amorphous carbon films.
Effects and thermal stability of hydrogen microwave plasma treatment on tetrahedral amorphous carbon films by in situ ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy