Study of the mechanical behavior of plasma-deposited silica films on polycarbonate and steel

In the present study, we deposited amorphous hydrogenated silicon oxide films on polycarbonate, stainless steel, and silicon by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition using a low pressure, high density integrated distributed electron cyclotron resonance plasma reactor. Substrate curvature, vibrating slab, and Vickers indentation experiments were used to evaluate the intrinsic stress, the Young modulus of the films, and the composite hardness of the film-substrate system. The indentation experiments were modeled by finite element analysis and the calculated values were compared to experimentally measured hardness values. A reasonable accordance with the experiment was found both for stainless-steel and polycarbonate substrates, indicating that the modeling is valid and may be used to enhance the interpretation of the indentation experiments. The calculations show an important bending of the film in the noncontact region in the case of a Vickers indentation on a coated polycarbonate sample. The analysis of the thus-induced strain distribution in the coating indicates that the measured diagonal might be overestimated and not representative of the real contact area. The calculations indicate that the yield limit of the plasma-deposited silica films is of about 4 GPa. (C) 2000 American Vacllnm Society. [S0734-2101(00)06604-5].