Influence of the plasma parameters and nitrogen addition on the electrical characteristics of DLC films deposited by inductively coupled plasma deposition

This work has been based on studies of the plasma parameters influence and nitrogen addition over on the electrical characteristics of diamond-like carbon (DLC) films deposited by inductively coupled plasma deposition (ICP) system. For these studies, it was used a mixture of methane with different flows of nitrogen, two different pressure processes and three different coil powers. The nitrogenated DLC films, had presented a great variation in their electric and structural properties with the nitrogen variation in the plasma. With the nitrogen addition, an increase in its dielectric constant of 1.7-7.4 to concentration of the 40% of the nitrogen has occurred. For high nitrogen concentrations (80% of nitrogen), the dielectric constant decreases (of 7.4 for 5.0). The resistivity of the films decreases with the nitrogen concentration increase (1.2 × 10⁹ Ω cm). Attributing semiconductors characteristics to DLC films. With the increase of nitrogen concentration, the sp³ hybridization increases, too. These characteristics were excellent for innumerable applications in electronic devices.