Deposition of Iron-Containing Single-And Multi-Layered Amorphous Carbon Films using Dual-Target Filtered Pulsed Cathodic Vacuum Arc (FCVA)

Summary form only given. The filtered pulsed cathodic vacuum arc (FCVA) technique is designed to produce plasmas from solid targets. Single element target is traditionally employed, but it cannot satisfy the needs when two or more elements are needed for plasma implantation or deposition. Introducing gases into the chamber and using alloys or composite targets are some of the solutions. These methods, however, have some problems such as difficulty to produce films with precise composition and it is not easy to prepare composite targets. In this paper, filtered pulsed cathodic vacuum arc deposition utilizing dual targets is presented. The approach is attractive because we are able to control the firing sequence of the targets to produce various combinations of plasmas. Using this unique technique, we have synthesized iron-containing single- and multi-layered amorphous carbon films. The films that are characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) exhibit excellent properties