Deposition of hydrogenated carbon film in a magnetically confined RF CH4/H2 plasma

The deposition of diamond like carbon (DLC) and transparent soft (TS) carbon films were carried out in CH4/H-2 rf (13.56 MHz) plasmas which were generated by a conventional magnetron sputtering system with parallel electrode configuration. In this work, the film properties and the deposition rates of both. films depending on source gas pressure, gas composition ratio and rf power input were examined. Using these results, it was suggested that the direct incorporation of ionic species together with the simultaneous ion-induced etching contributed considerably in the DLC film deposition, and the deposition rate of the TS film was remarkably related to the plasma density. One of the actions of hydrogen ions may be in the removal of hydrogen atoms from the growing DLC film surface. The carbon film properties were able to be controlled in a wide range mainly by changing source gas pressure.