Amorphous carbon (a-C) multilayered films consisting of sequential layers r
ich in sp(2) (A) and sp(3) (B) content have been developed by magnetron spu
ttering. We study here the effect of thickness d of the A layer in developi
ng stable thick films with controllable stress and elastic properties. In s
itu spectroscopic ellipsometry is used to calculate the thickness and the c
omposition of the individual lavers. The latter were compared with those ob
tained by depth profiling X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, which also prov
ides the different chemical bonding of the multilayers in depth. The stress
and hardness of the deposited a-C films were found to be related to the th
ickness of the A(j) layers and the relative ratio d(Aj)/d(B) of thicknesses
. The possible mechanisms for the stress control, stability and enhancement
of elastic properties of multilayered a-C films are discussed. (C) 2000 El
sevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.