Simultaneous preparation of amorphous solid carbon films, and their cluster building blocks

Abstract The chemical vapor deposition (CVD) has ‘dusty plasma’ condition region, under which circumstances there is a strong tendency for formation of nano-particles in the plasma by aggregation of ions. Using this phenomena carbon nano-particles have been prepared simultaneously with solid hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H) films. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were used to study the morphology of nano-particles and the film surfaces as well. Size distributions and shape factors of nano-clusters have been obtained from TEM results; their change with applied self-bias voltage was also examined. The bonding properties of deposited layers and nano-clusters were investigated by infrared spectroscopy. A comparative analysis concerning the morphology of the films and the nano-clusters was performed.