The investigation of optical and electrical properties of N+-implanted amorphous diamond-like carbon (DLC) films

Optical and electrical properties of diamond-like carbon (DLC) films irradi ated by N+ ions with energy 25 keV in the dose range from 3x10(14) to 3x10( 17) cm(-2) were investigated. It was shown that the dose dependencies of op tical and electrical properties of N+-implanted DLC films were different fr om those for the C+-implanted case in the moderate and high dose ranges due to carbon nitride phase formation. On the basis of dose dependencies three different steps of structural changes of N+-implanted DLC films can be dis tinguished: transformation of sp(3) + sp(2) mixture to sp(2) and growth of pi-clusters; the nucleation of carbon nitride phase and the decrease of pi- cluster concentration; the growth of carbon nitride nuclei and the decrease of pi-cluster sizes. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.