Excimer laser deposition of thin amorphous carbon films

A new carbon film deposition technique, based upon excimer laser vaporization of graphite in a flowing gas system has been developed. The low temperature vapor (LTV) technique alleviates high temperatures occurring in most other deposition methods. In this technique the UV laser ablation occurs in an inert flowing gas atmosphere. Atoms and molecules evaporated from graphite are cooled by gas entrainment before condensing on a substrate. The resulting films of amorphous carbon or hydrogenated amorphous carbon are free from strain. Measurement of the optical band gap of these films shows that E_g can be controlled by the hydrogen content of the carrier gas.