Deposition and electrical characterization of aligned carbon film

• Main Author: Soon, Cheng Wei.
• Other Authors: Tay Beng Kang
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Microelectronics
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/40857
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Amorphous carbon films have attracted the attention of many researchers to study on their applications in the semiconductor industries. The properties of the amorphous carbon films are largely determined by the sp2 to sp3 ratio. The sp2-rich graphite-like carbon is known to be a good electrical conductor, whereas the sp3-rich diamond-like carbon is known to be a good electrical insulator. In this project, the amorphous carbon films were deposited by using the filtered cathodic vacuum arc (FCVA). Raman spectroscopy was used to study the sp2 to sp3 ratio of the carbon films as a function of substrate bias and substrate temperature. The conductive-AFM was used to study the electrical conductivity of the carbon films. From the results, it was observed higher substrate bias would lead to higher sp2 ratio, and higher substrate temperature would result in lower resistances (higher conductivity). This may suggest that the in-situ annealing caused the sp2 bonds in the carbon films to align themselves to form vertical layers of graphitic sheets, and thus achieved better electrical conductivity. The compressive stress and surface roughness were also studied as a function of substrate bias and substrate temperature.