Abstract
Diamondlike carbon (DLC) thin films were deposited by the plasma CVD method in which radio frequency was powered on the substrate electrode. Deposition temperature was controlled by the pulsed deposition technique (5s deposition and 3min cooling repeatedly). The differences in the effect of the deposition temperature and the annealing temperature as well as the influences of annealing temperature on the properties and structure of the films have been studied carefully. Both internal stress reductions and film hardness increases are simultaneously observed within a certain annealing temperature range (-abt. 300°C). These results suggest that internal local strains are reduced by the annealing procedures and rearrangement of three dimensional network structure progresses to a certain degree, and then the densification of the network structure occurs in the films. With further increase of annealing temperature, network structure cleavages are observed and the DLC thin films are deteriorated exceedingly.
