• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.231.1-231.1
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• 2015

Surface energy, being an important material parameter to control its interactions with the other surfaces plays a key role in bio-related application. Carbon films are found very promising due to their characteristics such as wear and corrosion resistant, high hardness, inert, low resistivity and biocompatibility. The present work deals with the deposition of carbon films using unbalanced facing target magnetron sputtering technique. The discharge characteristics were studied using optical emission spectroscopy and correlated with the film properties. Surface energy was investigated through contact angle measurement. The ID/IG ratio as calculated from Raman spectroscopy data increases with the increase in power density due to the higher number of sp2 clusters embedded in the amorphous matrix. The deposited films were smooth and homogeneous as observed by Atomic force microscopy having RMS roughness in the range of 1.74 to 2.25 nm. It is observed that electrical resistivity and surface energy varies in direct proportionality with operating pressure and has inverse relation with power density. The surface energy results clearly exhibited that these films can have promising applications in cell cultivation.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.2007-2013
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• 2017

In order to give hydrophobic surface properties on carbon steel, the fluorinated amorphous carbon films were prepared by using linear 2.45GHz microwave PECVD device. Two different process approaches have been tested. One is direct deposition of a-C:H:F films using admixture of $Ar/CH_4/CF_4$ working gases and the other is surface treatment using $CF_4$ plasma after deposition of a-C:H film with $Ar/CH_4$ binary gas system. $Ar/CF_4$ plasma treated surface with high $CF_4$ gas ratio shows best hydrophobicity and durability of hydrophobicity. Nanometer scale surface roughness seems one of the most important factors for hydrophobicity within our experimental conditions. The properties of a-C:H:F films and $CF_4$ plasma treated a-C:H films were investigated in terms of surface roughness, hardness, microstructure, chemical bonding, atomic bonding structure between carbon and fluorine, adhesion and water contact angle by using atomic force microscopy (AFM), nano-indentation, Raman analysis and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.68-74
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• 2013

For the coating of diamond films on WC-Co tools, a buffer interlayer is needed because Co catalyzes diamond into graphite. W and Ti were chosen as candidate interlayer materials to prevent the diffusion of Co during diamond deposition. W or Ti interlayer of $1{\mu}m$ thickness was deposited on WC-Co substrate under Ar in a DC magnetron sputter. After seeding treatment of the interlayer-deposited specimens in an ultrasonic bath containing nanometer diamond powders, $2{\mu}m$ thick nanocrystalline diamond (NCD) films were deposited at $600^{\circ}C$ over the metal layers in a 2.45 GHz microwave plasma CVD system. The cross-sectional morphology of films was observed by FESEM. X-ray diffraction and visual Raman spectroscopy were used to confirm the NCD crystal structure. Micro hardness was measured by nano-indenter. The coefficient of friction (COF) was measured by tribology test using ball on disk method. After tribology test, wear tracks were examined by optical microscope and alpha step profiler. Rockwell C indentation test was performed to characterize the adhesion between films and substrate. Ti and W were found good interlayer materials to act as Co diffusion barriers and diamond nucleation layers. The COFs on NCD films with W or Ti interlayer were measured as less than 0.1 whereas that on bare WC-Co was 0.6~1.0. However, W interlayer exhibited better results than Ti in terms of the adhesion to WC-Co substrate and to NCD film. This result is believed to be due to smaller difference in the coefficients of thermal expansion of the related films in the case of W interlayer than Ti one. By varying the thickness of W interlayer as 1, 2, and $4{\mu}m$ with a fixed $2{\mu}m$ thick NCD film, no difference in COF and wear behavior but a significant change in adhesion was observed. It was shown that the thicker the interlayer, the stronger the adhesion. It is suggested that thicker W interlayer is more effective in relieving the residual stress of NCD film during cooling after deposition and results in stronger adhesion.