Characterization of Carbon Nitride Thin Films Deposited by Laser Ablation Combined with a DC High Voltage Discharge

Recently, considerable effort has been directed towards the synthesis of the covalent solid carbon nitride ß-C₃N₄. This effort was initiated following a theoretical prediction by Liu and Cohen that ß-C₃N₄ would have excellent properties, such as hardness comparable to or greater than that of the hardest known material, diamond. The formation of carbon nitride thin films of C₃N₄ type with theoretical nitrogen content up to 57 at % has remained an intriguing problem in this field of material science. Up to date numerous investigations in C₃N₄ thin films deposition resulted in the phase of amorphous or nanocrystalline specimen with nitrogen content less than 45 at %. We reported about the crystal phase of carbon nitride thin films of ß-C₃N₄ type on Si(100) substrate deposited by pulsed YAG laser ablation (PLA) of pure graphite target as a source of gas phase carbon combined with a DC bias high voltage cathodic discharge (DC-HVCD) in pure nitrogen (99.9999 %) gas atmosphere. We investigated to the influence of the electrical magnetic field (EMF) assistant and the pressure of nitrogen (P_N2) and energetic DC bias high voltage (1300 ~ 5000 Volt) cathodic discharge source between two graphite electrodes.