UFAS1 PLATFORM EVENTS, International Conference on Materials Science ICMS2018

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Raman analysis of carbon based thin films
Mohamed OUCHABANE

Last modified: 2018-07-25

Abstract


Raman spectroscopy is now a powerful tool to characterize carbon based thin films materials. The principle is to probe the material with a laser at a given wavelength and energy and record Raman effects as a spectrum which is more sensitive to lengths, strengths and arrangements of bonds within the material. The structure of amorphous hydrogenated carbon (a-C:H) coatings is often described by the bond forms of carbon-carbon and carbon-hydrogen within the carbon matrix mixed with a certain amount of hydrogen content. Therefore, with the presence of hydrogen, carbon forms mainly both sp3 and sp2 sites that are at the origin of physical and mechanical properties of the material. The clustering degree of sp2 sites is also considered as a feature behind optical, electronic and mechanical properties of this kind of material as claimed by Robertson [1]. All these bonds characteristics can be probed by using Raman spectroscopy in the IR, visible and UV energy ranges. To do this, the as deposited DLC films were characterized using Raman laser spectroscopy at 3.81eV of energy (λ=325nm) and 1.96eV (632nm). The recorded spectra show the so-called G and D peaks at around 1580 and 1400cm-1, respectively. The Raman scattering modes that give rise to those peaks are dominated by sp2 sites and their characteristics according to their size and on whether they are organized in chains or rings. It is known that the G peak originates from the stretching mode of sp2 sites (E2g mode) formed in chains (olefins) or aromatic or odd-membered rings, while the D peak is due to the breathing mode of (A1g mode) sp2 sites in rings [2-4]. However, by interpreting Raman spectra on the basis of their parameters such as position, width and intensity leads to more insight and better description of the structure. This can be done through fitting the main feature after baseline correction into two Gaussian peaks in Origin software. From fitting results it has been found that positions of G and D bands and D width are almost with no significant change from one sample to another. However, when comparing these Raman results with those collected in the visible range [5], it is seen that when increasing energy the G peak positions shift towards higher frequencies while the G line width exhibits narrow line and decreases with increasing film thickness. On the other side, the intensity ratio of D and G peaks (ID/IG) as a function of residual stress showed a linear relationship and the determined La indicate that G width is correlated to the sp2 clusters organized in rings [6].