DIAMOND-LIKE CARBON-FILM PREPARATION BY LASER ARC

The method of laser-induced, laser-pulsed and laser-guided vacuum arc evaporation (laser arc) was used to prepare diamond-like carbon (DLC) films. The deposition was carried out with an arc repetition frequency of 100 Hz, a peak current of 450 A and a pulse duration of about 37-mu-s. At a deposition rate of 1 nm s-1 films were deposited up to a thickness of 1-mu-m. It will be shown that, using this controlled arc deposition, characterized by plasma-sustained ion bombardment, DLC films can be prepared on silicon wafers, quartz, glass, ZnSe and NaCl or KCl substrates with an increased adhesion in comparison with earlier experiments. The frictional behaviour of films prepared at different temperatures (50-degrees-C-500-degrees-C) was studied. The refractive index was estimated by ellipsometry and varied between 2.0 and 2.4 with an extinction coefficient below 0.2 at a wavelength of 633 nm. The optical band gap has been found to be of the order of 1.3 eV.