Optical and morphological properties of porous diamond-like-carbon films deposited by magnetron sputtering

Abstract Porous diamond-like-carbon (PDLC) thin films obtained on silicon substrate by DC low energy magnetron sputtering have been investigated by photoluminescence, transmission and reflection spectroscopy, photoacoustic and spectroscopic ellipsometry. The absorption features observed for these films show similarities with those of porous silicon (PS) as well as in the performed gradient structural pattern classification of the SFM porosity, by means of the computational GPA-flyby environment on PS and PDLC samples. The dielectric function is also calculated for the bulk diamond-like carbon using the full-potential linearized augmented plane wave method within the framework of local density approximation to density functional theory. From the measurement a low real dielectric constant of about 4.5 at 0.8 eV was found whereas the calculated e1(0) for the bulk diamond has a value of 5.5.