Optical and Electrical Properties of Diamond-like-Carbon Coatings Prepared by Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Beam Deposition Process

TL;DR

This study introduces a novel ion beam deposition method for fabricating diamond-like carbon coatings with tunable optical and electronic properties, demonstrating control over their structure and transparency for optoelectronic applications.

Contribution

A new high-energy electron cyclotron resonance ion beam technique for room-temperature diamond-like carbon coating fabrication with adjustable properties.

Findings

sp3 content ranges from 45% to 85%

Optical band gap varies from 0.4 to 0.68 eV

Refractive index ranges from 2.30 to 2.51

Abstract

Diamond-like carbon thin films have emerged as durable, chemically stable optical coatings for many optical and optoelectronics applications due to their hardness, chemical inertness, and optical transparency. This paper presents a novel high-energy electron cyclotron resonance ion beam sputter deposition technique to fabricate pure diamond-like carbon coatings at room temperature. The chemical composition of the deposited coatings including ratios of sp2/sp3 bonding in the thin films were determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Results indicate that the sp3 percentage ranges from 45% - 85%. The transmission and reflectance spectra of the coatings were measured from UV to IR ({\lambda}= 185 to 2500 nm) by utilizing a spectrophotometer. The measured spectra were analysed by the Tauc method to determine the optical band gap and Urbach energy and an optical fitting software, which utilizes the model modified by OJL, to extract the refractive index and extinction coefficient. By varying the ion energy, the optical properties were found to be n = 2.30 - 2.51, band gap energy = 0.4 - 0.68 eV, and the Urbach energy = 0.33 - 0.49 eV. This study provides a flexible method for tuning the structural, optical, and electronic properties of diamond-like carbon coatings by controlling the ion energy during deposition.