Investigated the ion energy and the microstructure properties of tetrahedral amorphous carbon film produced by pulsed filtered cathodic vacuum arc combined with plasma biasing technique

The purpose of this work is to demonstrate that operations using the plasma biasing technique in pulsed filtered cathodic vacuum arc (PFCVA) enable an energy-enhanced in deposition process for the high quality of tetrahedral amorphous carbon (ta-C) thin films (high sp3 content, denser, and very low surface roughness). The effect of anode bias potential on the energy distribution function of C+ ions, including the topography, microstructure, chemical state, and density of ta-C films, was systematically investigated. It was found that the plasma biasing technique can increase the average energy of C+ ions, but nevertheless, the ion flux and ion density decreased. The ion energetically enhanced deposition during PFCVA facilitates the densification of the films up to 3.30 g∙cm‒3 for substrate with the grounded substrate condition, and up to 3.22 g∙cm‒3 for substrate with the floating substrate condition. In addition, the films surface roughness and sp3 content significantly depend on the average ion energy.