Polymeric like carbon films prepared from liquid gas and the effect of nitrogen

Polymeric like carbon (PLC) films are grown by a capacitance coupled RF-PECVD on the grounded electrode at room temperature from liquid gas (40% propane and 60% butane) in two regimes with nitrogen and without nitrogen gas. Films are characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) absorption and Raman spectroscopy. The result of FTIR analyses indicates that more than 90% of hydrogen atoms are bonded to carbon with sp³ hybridization. The abundance of CH₃ is more than that of CH₂ and this one is more than that of CH for carbon with sp³ hybridization in these films. The C 1s line of the XPS spectra is deconvoluted to several peaks that are attributed to the CH₃, CH₂ and CH terminations. The result of this deconvolution is consistent with FTIR results. AFM images show that the mean nanoparticle size is reduced from about 100 nm for films without nitrogen to less than 80 nm for films with nitrogen. This is in agreement with our Raman results. By addition of nitrogen to the feed gas, no variation in the C-H stretching vibration mode is observed. The effect of N-H bonds is observable in both FTIR and XPS spectra and a very small trace of N-C bonds is present only in deconvolution of N 1s line of XPS spectra. These results indicate that by addition of nitrogen to feed gas, internal structure of a-C:H nanoparticles is not changed but particle size is decreased. We suggest that the internal stress reduction due to nitrogen addition in the feed gas for PLC films can be related to decreasing of the a-C:H particle size.