Concurrent synthesis and boron-doping of amorphous carbon films by focused ion beam-assisted chemical vapor deposition

Highlights: • Boron-doped carbon films via focused ion beam induced chemical vapor deposition. • Concurrent deposition, boron doping, and patterning of boron-doped carbon films. • Lithography-free patterning of boron-doped carbon films. A method to directly deposit boron-doped amorphous carbon films via focused ion beam-assisted chemical vapor deposition is reported. The presence of boron in the deposited films was verified by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Raman spectroscopy analysis confirmed the amorphousity of the films. The as-deposited films exhibited typical semiconducting behavior from electrical resistance versus temperature measurements. The presented fabrication technique is a one step process for the simultaneous deposition, boron-doping, and patterning of the films, and hence may offer an effective way to directly fabricate boron-doped amorphous carbon-based devices without the need for templates, which is highly advantageous for applications.