Evolution of the sp2 content and revealed multilayer growth of amorphous hydrogenated carbon (a-C:H) films on selected thermoplastic materials

6533b82cfe1ef96bd1290195

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Evolution of the sp2 content and revealed multilayer growth of amorphous hydrogenated carbon (a-C:H) films on selected thermoplastic materials

Franco Mario Gelardi Christian B. Fischer Alberto Catena Marco Cannas Stefan Wehner Simonpietro Agnello

subject

Materials science 02 engineering and technology Chemical vapor deposition 01 natural sciences Contact angle chemistry.chemical_compound Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition Surface corrugation 0103 physical sciences Polyethylene terephthalate General Materials Science Composite material Stress release phenomena Tauc gap 010302 applied physics Polyoxymethylene Chemistry (all)Settore FIS/01 - Fisica Sperimentale General Chemistry 021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology Different sp2 cluster Amorphous solid Diamond-like carbon (DLC)chemistry High-density polyethylene 0210 nano-technology Layer (electronics)

description

Amorphous hydrogenated carbon (a-C:H) films were gradually deposited on high-density polyethylene (HDPE), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyoxymethylene (POM) via an indirect (f-type) and a direct (r-type) plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) process with acetylene plasma. The surface morphologies of the thicker r-depositions on the three different thermoplastics have been analyzed by atomic force microscopy (AFM) at varying micrometer scales. Absorbance spectroscopy has been used to characterize the optical properties of all coatings. Intrinsic stress release phenomena are revealed on thicker layers through the detection of characteristic surface corrugations. Based on contact angle measurements, the different size of these morphological entities is discussed in terms of different surroundings at the formed sp2 clusters in the films. Superimposed structures developed between coalescence grains have been furthermore observed on top of the thicker layer on PET, demonstrating that the growth of a-C:H material on plastics occurs by a multilayer mode. For all coatings, the total sp2 content increases with increasing f- and r-deposition. Even if thinner layers show dissimilar sp2 contents and even if different specific sp2 organizations exist between the developed coatings on POM compared to HDPE and PET, for thicker r-depositions the total sp2 content assimilates for all films.

year	journal	country	edition	language
2017-06-01	Carbon

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carbon.2017.02.093