• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 1997.07d
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• pp.1379-1382
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• 1997

Diamond-like carbon(DLC) thin films are produced by using a filtered cathodic vacuum arc(FCVA) deposition system. Different magnetic components, namely steering, focusing, and filtering plasma-optic systems, are used to achieve a stable arc plasma and to prevent the macroparticles from incorporating into the deposited films. Effects of magnetic fields on plasma behavior and film deposition are examined. The carbon ion energy is found to be varied by applying a negative (accelerating) substrate bias voltage. The deposition rate of DLC films is dependent upon magnetic field as well as substrate bias voltage and at a nominal deposition condition is about $2{\AA}/s$. The structural properties of DLC films, such as internal stress, relative fraction of tetrahedral($sp^3$) bonds, and surface roughness have also been characterized as a function of substrate bias voltages and partial gas($N_2$) pressures.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.411-414
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• 2009

It has been investigated for the film uniformity and deposition rate of a-C:H films on glass substrate and polymeric materials in the presence of the modulated crossed magnetic field. We used Plasma CVD, i.e, using a crossed electromagnetic field, for uniform depositing thin film. The optimum discharge condition has been discussed for the gas pressure, the magnetic flux density and the distance between substrate and electrodes, As a result, it is found that the optimum discharge conditions are $CH_4$ concentration $CH_4$=10 %, modulated magnetic flux density B=48 Gauss, pressure P=100 mTorr, discharge power supply voltage V=l kV under these experimental conditions. By using these experimental condition, it is possible to prepare the most uniform film extends over about 160 mm of the film width. In this study, we deposited a-C:H thin film on glass substrate, and have a plan that using this condition, study depositing a-C:H thin film on polymeric substrate in next studies.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.403-415
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• 2021

Background: This study aimed to assess the possibility of benzene exposure in workers of a Korean semiconductor manufacturing company by reviewing the issued patents. Methods: A systematic patent search was conducted with the Google "Advanced Patent Search" engine using the keywords "semiconductor" and "benzene" combined with all of the words accessed on January 24, 2016. Results: As a result of the search, we reviewed 75 patent documents filed by a Korean semiconductor manufacturing company from 1994 to 2010. From 22 patents, we found that benzene could have been used as one of the carbon sources in chemical vapor deposition for capacitor; as diamond-like carbon for solar cell, graphene formation, or etching for transition metal thin film; and as a solvent for dielectric film, silicon oxide layer, nanomaterials, photoresist, rise for immersion lithography, electrophotography, and quantum dot ink. Conclusion: Considering the date of patent filing, it is possible that workers in the chemical vapor deposition, immersion lithography, and graphene formation processes could be exposed to benzene from 1996 to 2010.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.155-160
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• 2019

Diamond Like Carbon (DLC) is a metastable form of amorphous carbon that have superior material properties such as high mechanical hardness, chemical inertness, abrasion resistance, and biocompatibility. Furthermore, its material properties can be tuned by additional doping such as nitrogen or boron. However, either pure DLC or doped DLC show poor adhesion property that makes it difficult to apply contact processing technique. Therefore we propose ultrafast laser micromachining which is non-contact precision process without mechanical degradation. In this study, we developed precision machining process of DLC thin film using an ultrafast laser by investigating the process window in terms of laser fluence and laser wavelength. We have also demonstrated various patterns on the film without generating any microcracks and debris.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2000.11a
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• pp.3-4
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• 2000

Many researchers are interested in the synthesis and characterization of carbon nitride and diamond-like carbon (DLq because they show excellent mechanical properties such as low friction and high wear resistance and excellent electrical properties such as controllable electical resistivity and good field electron emission. We have deposited amorphous carbon nitride (a-C:N) thin films and DLC thin films by shielded arc ion plating (SAIP) and evaluated the structural and tribological properties. The application of appropriate negative bias on substrates is effective to increase the film hardness and wear resistance. This paper reports on the deposition and tribological OLC films in relation to the substrate bias voltage (Vs). films are compared with those of the OLC films. A high purity sintered graphite target was mounted on a cathode as a carbon source. Nitrogen or argon was introduced into a deposition chamber through each mass flow controller. After the initiation of an arc plasma at 60 A and 1 Pa, the target surface was heated and evaporated by the plasma. Carbon atoms and clusters evaporated from the target were ionized partially and reacted with activated nitrogen species, and a carbon nitride film was deposited onto a Si (100) substrate when we used nitrogen as a reactant gas. The surface of the growing film also reacted with activated nitrogen species. Carbon macropartic1es (0.1 -100 maicro-m) evaporated from the target at the same time were not ionized and did not react fully with nitrogen species. These macroparticles interfered with the formation of the carbon nitride film. Therefore we set a shielding plate made of stainless steel between the target and the substrate to trap the macropartic1es. This shielding method is very effective to prepare smooth a-CN films. We, therefore, call this method "shielded arc ion plating (SAIP)". For the deposition of DLC films we used argon instead of nitrogen. Films of about 150 nm in thickness were deposited onto Si substrates. Their structures, chemical compositions and chemical bonding states were analyzed by using X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and infrared spectroscopy. Hardness of the films was measured with a nanointender interfaced with an atomic force microscope (AFM). A Berkovich-type diamond tip whose radius was less than 100 nm was used for the measurement. A force-displacement curve of each film was measured at a peak load force of 250 maicro-N. Load, hold and unload times for each indentation were 2.5, 0 and 2.5 s, respectively. Hardness of each film was determined from five force-displacement curves. Wear resistance of the films was analyzed as follows. First, each film surface was scanned with the diamond tip at a constant load force of 20 maicro-N. The tip scanning was repeated 30 times in a 1 urn-square region with 512 lines at a scanning rate of 2 um/ s. After this tip-scanning, the film surface was observed in the AFM mode at a constant force of 5 maicro-N with the same Berkovich-type tip. The hardness of a-CN films was less dependent on Vs. The hardness of the film deposited at Vs=O V in a nitrogen plasma was about 10 GPa and almost similar to that of Si. It slightly increased to 12 - 15 GPa when a bias voltage of -100 - -500 V was applied to the substrate with showing its maximum at Vs=-300 V. The film deposited at Vs=O V was least wear resistant which was consistent with its lowest hardness. The biased films became more wear resistant. Particularly the film deposited at Vs=-300 V showed remarkable wear resistance. Its wear depth was too shallow to be measured with AFM. On the other hand, the DLC film, deposited at Vs=-l00 V in an argon plasma, whose hardness was 35 GPa was obviously worn under the same wear test conditions. The a-C:N films show higher wear resistance than DLC films and are useful for wear resistant coatings on various mechanical and electronic parts.nic parts.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2009.05a
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• pp.111-112
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• 2009

Diamond-like carbon (DLC) is a convenient term to indicate the compositions of the various forms of amorphous carbon (a-C), tetrahedral amorphous carbon (ta-C), hydrogenated amorphous carbon and tetrahedral amorphous carbon (a-C:H and ta-C:H). The a-C film with disordered graphitic ordering, such as soot, chars, glassy carbon, and evaporated a-C, is shown in the lower left hand corner. If the fraction of sp3 bonding reaches a high degree, such an a-C is denoted as tetrahedral amorphous carbon (ta-C), in order to distinguish it from sp2 a-C [2]. Two hydrocarbon polymers, that is, polyethylene (CH2)n and polyacetylene (CH)n, define the limits of the triangle in the right hand corner beyond which interconnecting C-C networks do not form, and only strait-chain molecules are formed. The DLC films, i.e. a-C, ta-C, a-C:H and ta-C:H, have some extreme properties similar to diamond, such as hardness, elastic modulus and chemical inertness. These films are great advantages for many applications. One of the most important applications of the carbon-based films is the coating for magnetic hard disk recording. The second successful application is wear protective and antireflective films for IR windows. The third application is wear protection of bearings and sliding friction parts. The fourth is precision gages for the automotive industry. Recently, exciting ongoing study [1] tries to deposit a carbon-based protective film on engine parts (e.g. engine cylinders and pistons) taking into account not only low friction and wear, but also self lubricating properties. Reduction of the oil consumption is expected. Currently, for an additional application field, the carbon-based films are extensively studied as excellent candidates for biocompatible films on biomedical implants. The carbon-based films consist of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen, which are biologically harmless as well as the main elements of human body. Some in vitro and limited in vivo studies on the biological effects of carbon-based films have been studied [$2{\sim}5$].The carbon-based films have great potentials in many fields. However, a few technological issues for carbon-based film are still needed to be studied to improve the applicability. Aisenberg and Chabot [3] firstly prepared an amorphous carbon film on substrates remained at room temperature using a beam of carbon ions produced using argon plasma. Spencer et al. [4] had subsequently developed this field. Many deposition techniques for DLC films have been developed to increase the fraction of sp3 bonding in the films. The a-C films have been prepared by a variety of deposition methods such as ion plating, DC or RF sputtering, RF or DC plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD), electron cyclotron resonance chemical vapor deposition (ECR-CVD), ion implantation, ablation, pulsed laser deposition and cathodic arc deposition, from a variety of carbon target or gaseous sources materials [5]. Sputtering is the most common deposition method for a-C film. Deposited films by these plasma methods, such as plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) [6], are ranged into the interior of the triangle. Application fields of DLC films investigated from papers. Many papers purposed to apply for tribology due to the carbon-based films of low friction and wear resistance. Figure 1 shows the percentage of DLC research interest for application field. The biggest portion is tribology field. It is occupied 57%. Second, biomedical field hold 14%. Nowadays, biomedical field is took notice in many countries and significantly increased the research papers. DLC films actually applied to many industries in 2005 as shown figure 2. The most applied fields are mold and machinery industries. It took over 50%. The automobile industry is more and more increase application parts. In the near future, automobile industry is expected a big market for DLC coating. Figure 1 Research interests of carbon-based filmsFigure 2 Demand ratio of DLC coating for industry in 2005. In this presentation, I will introduce a trend of carbon-based coating research and applications.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.53-61
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• 2021

The properties of tetrahedral amorphous Carbon (ta-C) film can be determined by multiple parameters and comprehensive effects of those parameters during a deposition process with filtered cathodic vacuum arc (FCVA). In this study, Taguchi method was adopted to design the optimized FCVA deposition process of ta-C for improving deposition efficiency and mechanical properties of the deposited ta-C thin film. The influence and contribution of variables, such as arc current, substrate bias voltage, frequency, and duty cycle, on the properties of ta-C were investigated in terms of deposition efficiency and mechanical properties. It was revealed that the deposition rate was linearly increased following the increasing arc current (around 10 nm/min @ 60 A and 17 nm/min @ 100A). The hardness and I_D/I_G showed a correlation with substrate bias voltage (over 30 GPa @ 50 V and under 30 GPa @ 250 V). The scratch tests were conducted to specify the effect of each parameter on the resistance to plastic deformation of films. The analysis on variances showed that the arc current and substrate bias voltage were the most effective controlling parameters influencing properties of ta-C films. The optimized parameters were extracted for the target applications in various industrial fields.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.86-91
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• 1999

We have fabricated high-$\textrm{T}_c$ superconducting $\textrm{YBa}_{2}\textrm{Cu}_{3}\textrm{O}_{7-x}$(YBCO) grain boundary junctions at a step-edge on (001) $\textrm{SrTiO}_3$(STO) substrates. A diamond-like carbon (DLC) film grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition were used as an ion milling mask to make steps on the STO (100) single crystal and was removed by an oxygen reactive ion etch process. The c-axis oriented YBCO and TO thin films were deposited epitaxially on the STO substrate with a step-edge by pulsed laser deposition. The grain boundary junctions were formed at the top and the bottom of the step. The junctions worked at temperatures above 77 K, and had I\ulcornerR\ulcorner products of 7.5mV at 16K and 0.3 mV at 77K, respectively. The I-V characteristics of these junctions showed the shape of the two noisy resistively shunted junction model.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.287-293
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• 2006

Diamond-like carbon (DLC) film was deposited using benzene $(C_6H_6)$ by r. f-plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition. The tribological properties of the DLC film were tested by rotating ball-on-disc type tribometer isolated by a chamber. The tribological test was performed in air environment of relative humidity ranging from 0 to 90% in order to observe the tribological behavior of the DLC film with the change of humidity. We used steel ball and DLC coated steel ball to investigate the effect of the counterface material. Using steel ball, the friction coefficient of DLC film increased from 0.025 to 0.2 as the humidity increased from 0% to 90%. In case of DLC coated steel ball which didn't form the Fe-rich debris, the friction coefficient showed much lower dependence of humidity as 0.08 in relative humidity 90%. We confirmed that the high humidity dependence of the friction coefficient using steel ball resulted from the increase of debris size with humidity and the formation of Fe-rich debris by the wear of steel ball. And the friction coefficient was immediately dropped when the relative humidity changed from 90% to 0% during test using steel ball. From this result, we confirmed that the effect of the Fe-rich debris on the friction coefficient was that Fe element in debris formed the highly sensitive graphitic transfer layer to humidity.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.59-65
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• 1998

Multi-layer diamond-like carbon (DLC) films were deposited by 13.56 MHz r.f. PACVD method. Multi-layer DLC film was composed of 2.5 $mu extrm{m}$ thick pure DLC filml and 0.2$\mu\textrm{m}$ thick Si incorporated DLC (Si-DLC) film as a surface layer. Tribological behaviors of the multi-layer DLC film were investigated with a ball-on-disk type tribometer in ambient atmosphere using AISI 52100 steel ball. Low friction coefficient (<0.1) period increased with increasing the Si content in the surface Si-DLC film. The wear rate after 44,000 cycles and 158,400 cycles were the $2.5\times10^{-8}\sim1.8\times10^{-7}\textrm{mm}^3$/rev. and $7.1\times10^{-9}\sim1.8\times10^{-8}\textrm{mm}^3$/rev.,respectively. The wear rate of the multi-layer DLC film after 158,400 cycles was about 2 times smaller than that of pure DLC films of 2.7 $\mu\textrm{m}$ thickness. This high wear resistance and low friction coefficient was caused by the formation of Si oxide layer on the wear scar surface, as confirmed by the debris composition analysis. It was further shown that this si oxide debris layer on the wear scar surface is formed again even after removing the debris of the steel ball, which maintain the low friction coefficient between multi-layer DLC films and steel ball.