THE EFFECT OF ANNEALING ON THE STRUCTURE OF CATHODIC ARE DEPOSITED AMORPHOUS-CARBON NITRIDE FILMS

The annealing behaviour of cathodic are deposited amorphous carbon nit ride films has been investigated for temperatures up to 1000 degrees C . The annealing of the films was performed in situ within a transmissi on electron microscope, and the structure was probed using electron en ergy loss spectroscopy. The as-deposited carbon nitride was found to h ave a [N]/[C] atomic ratio of 0.45 with both the carbon and nitrogen a toms bonded mainly in sp(2) configurations. As the anneal temperature was increased to 200 degrees C, the [N]/[C] ratio decreased to 0.35 du e to the removal of loosely bound nitrogen from the amorphous network. For anneal temperatures above 400 degrees C, the [N]/[C] ratio gradua lly decreases as the carbon nitride film graphitises, forcing nitrogen out of the structure. There was no evidence for the formation of nitr ogen containing crystallites during the annealing process.