CARBON NITRIDE - PROSPECTS FOR ULTIMATE PERFORMANCE OF SUPERHARD MATERIALS

In order to deposit thin solid films containing covalently bonded carb on nitride as a major matrix component, several different techniques f or deposition were explored. They included reactive pulsed laser depos ition, reactive DC magnetron sputtering and laser ablation of a frozen ethanol/liquid N-2 double layer system. Surface analysis techniques s howed that the concentrations of nitrogen were as high as 20 to 25 at% in the bulk and up to 40 at% in the upper layers of the resulting a-C /a-CNx films. The covalent bond of nitrogen to carbon was identified. It is similar to the nitrogen bonds in silicon nitride and boron nitri de.