THE INFLUENCE OF ATOMIC NITROGEN FLUX ON THE COMPOSITION OF CARBON NITRIDE THIN-FILMS

Carbon nitride (CNx) thin films have been deposited using a hybrid sys tem combining pulsed laser deposition of graphite with the surface-wav e discharge atomic nitrogen source (3% N-2 in Ar). Using this system, an experiment is designed to study the influence of the atomic nitroge n flux on the composition of the CNx thin films at various laser inten sities, The nitrogen percentage in the thin films is positively correl ated with the N atom flux impinging on the substrate surface but it is counter-productive to use excessively high values of laser intensitie s on the graphite target. For a laser intensity of 6 x 10(8) W/cm(2), the nitrogen percentage increases with the N atom flux and saturates a t only about 16 at. %. On the other hand, a maximum nitrogen percentag e of 30 at. % is obtained at the much lower laser intensity of 5 x 10( 7) W/cm(2). (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(97)012 50-3].