Effects of Fe-embedding on microstructure and electrical properties of diamond like carbon films

Fe-embedding diamond-like carbon(Fe: DLC) films with different Fe content were deposited by using a pulsed laser deposition(PLD) technique. An X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS) was used to probe the composition of deposited Fe: DLC films. The effects of Fe-embedding on the microstructure and electrical properties of diamond-like carbon films were investigated by means of transmission electron microscopy(TEM), Raman spectroscopy and current-voltage characteristics. The XPS, TEM and Raman spectra analyses indicate that the Fe nano-particles periodically embed in the amorphous carbon matrix and their embedding promote aromatic bond formation, and accordingly, the degree of order of the films increase gradually as the Fe content increase. The current-voltage characteristics show Fe-embeddi