Raman and peels studies of magnetron sputtered a-C

Amorphous carbon coatings (a-C, a-C:H) of less than 100 nm thick were depos ited on KBr pellets and silicon wafer substrate via magnetron sputtering of graphite target in argon, argon/hydrogen and argon/nitrogen atmosphere. Pa rallel electron energy loss spectroscopy (PEELS) analysis was used to quant ify the sp(2) / sp(3) bonding in carbon films. Stand-alone films of amorpho us carbon were produced by sputtering onto compressed KBr pellets and then floating off in distilled water for PEELS study. Raman spectroscopy was use d to measure the peak intensity ratio of D-band to that of the G-band (I-d/ I-g). It shows that higher sp(3) fraction often associates with lower Raman peak ratio I-d/I-g. At the same time, G-band peak position P-g deceases wh ile sp(3) fraction increases.