Study on Properties of Silicon Oxycarbide Thin Films Prepared by RF Magnetron Sputtering

Silicon oxycarbide(SiCO) thin films are a kind of glassy compound materials, which possess many potential excellent properties such as thermal stability, big energy band, big refractive index and high hardness, and have many potential applications in space. The preparation processes of SiCO thin films synthesized by RF magnetron sputtering with different substrate temperature, working pressure or sputtering power were studied. And varied surface analysis methods were used to characterize the optical and mechanical properties of SiCO thin films. The dependence of the properties to the process parameters was else studied. The results of the properties SiCO thin films deposited on K9 glass indicated that lower substrate temperature and sputtering power, higher working pressure could get SiCO thin films with better transmittance. The indentation hardness HIT of SiCO thin films on K9 glass had dependence on substrate temperature and sputtering power, and the rise of substrate temperature could enhance the indentation hardness HIT evidently. The indentation hardness of sample K2 and M2 which synthesized when substrate temperature was 473K was as high as 18.15, 13.20GPa respectively.