Tribological Propertees of Carbon thin Films Prepared by Plasma-Free Sputtering Method

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TRIBOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF CARBON THIN FILMS PREPARED BY PLASMA-FREE SPUTTERING METHOD T. Hirata and M. Naoe Dept. of Physical Electronics, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1, O-okayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 152, Japan ABSTRACT Amorphous plasma-free

"Diamond-like"

substrates at low

Sputtering

(FTS)

determined

by tap,

carbon films

temperature

method.

by

Tribological

scratch and slide tests

were the

deposited Facing

on

Targets

characteristics

much better than those for amorphous carbon films deposited by the conventional Magnetron Sputtering (MS) method. Consequently, these films deposited

by the FTS

protective

rigid

layers in

method

magnetic

were

were surely useful for

disk.

INTRODUCTION Recently, of electronic

carbon films play important roles in devices [1]-[7].

On the other hand,

many kinds

they

are used as the protective layer with excellent wear resistance in rigid magnetic disks and exhibit good tribological characteristics in magnetic recording system. The deposition of carbon thin films in low working gas pressure is performed by cracking hydrocarbon gas in plasma[8] and bombarding graphite target by high-energy ions[9], i.e., sputtering. Usually,

the conventional MS

method is used for depositing the films deposited by the MS method revealed rough surface texture and clearly colu m nar microstructure by damaging and resputtering the growing film carbon

films.

However,

surface by high-energy

particles such as recoiled Ar atoms, negative ions and 7-electrons and by incorporating impurity gas into

the

film.

tribological rigid

Accordingly,

characteristics

magnetic disk. On the contrary,

they

did

not

applicable

the FTS

as

exhibit

satisfactory

protective

layer

in

method can deposit homogeneous

films with ultra-flat surface appearance and densely columnless morphology. In the FTS apparatus, the plasma of glow discharge can be

successfully

confined

in

the

space

between

Mat. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. Vol. 239. 01992 Materials Research Society

the

facing

636

when the vertical magnetic field to the cathode strong enough to trap Y-electrons with high energy.

target planes plane is

Therefore, plasma-free

the apparatus can deposit good quality films on the substrates at high deposition rate. In addition to

these merits,

it

can control the structure and properties of

elements such as carbon by strict thin films of lighter adjustment of the biasing voltage Vb to substrate in the low range of several volts[10]. In this study, the specimen carbon films have been deposited by the FTS method and the tribological detail.

characteristics

of them

have

been

investigated

in

EXPERIMENT The FTS apparatus used in this study is shown in Fig.l. The used targets were two round plates of sintered graphite with diameter of 100 m m and thickness of 5 m m at the distance The distance between targets and substrates of 150 mm. dTT dTS was 75 a m. The magnetic field applied for confining the plasma was 180 G in the central point of the space between facing targets. Th