High rate deposition of diamond like carbon films by very high frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition at 100 MHz

Diamond like carbon (DLC) films were grown using 13.56 and 100 MHz plasma as excitation frequencies in the same plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) system. Deposition rate, stress, hardness, optical band gap, refractive index, Urbach energy, electrical conductivity, and hydrogen content of these films have been measured. It was found that just by changing the excitation frequency from 13.56 to 100 MHz, deposition rates of DLC films were enhanced about five times. Thus, very high frequency (100 MHz) PECVD process, with imposed dc bias, is capable of producing reasonably hard DLC films at high growth rates. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.