Deposition Behavior of Boron Carbide Thin Film Deposited by Unbalanced Magnetron Sputtering Method

Abstract

The effect of temperature and substrate bias on the deposition behavior of boron carbide (BC) thin film was studied. BC thin films were deposited by an unbalanced magnetron sputtering (UBM sputtering) method. The B4C target was connected to a DC power supply at 200 W and sputtered by ionized argon gas. The distance between the substrate and target was 7.5 cm and the deposition pressure was 3 mTorr with argon gas. Silicon substrates were heated by halogen lamps from room temperature to 450 degrees C. DC bias voltage applied to substrates up to -100 V. The deposited films showed no diffraction peak on either X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy analysis, which indicated an amorphous nature of the films irrespective of deposition temperature and substrate bias in this study. Only a 1280 cm(-1) absorption peak of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy was observed. The hardness of the BC films was about 40 GPa regardless of deposition temperature.