Structural analysis for the stress variation of ta-C film with deposition energy: A molecular dynamics simulation

Molecular dynamics simulations are performed on the atomic origin of the evolution of residual stress in tetrahedral amorphous carbon (ta-C) film using the empirical Tersoff potential. The densities of and residual stresses in the amorphous films generated by molecular dynamics simulations were found to be in good agreement with the corresponding experimental results. A radial distribution function analysis shows that the peak at approximately 2.1 Å found in high-stress configurations, which is referred to as a satellite peak, is closely linked with the variation of the residual stress in ta-C film.