The study on the stress and the friction coefficient of tetrahedral amorphous carbon films bombarded by energetic Ar ion

The ta-C films with sp(3) bonds more than 80% in fraction are deposited by FCVA technique, and then they are bombarded by Ar ions. The composition and structures of the ta-C films before and after the bombardment of energetic Ar ions are analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The surface morphology is investigated by AFM. The result shows that the bombardment of Ar ions induces the conversion of sp(3) bond into sp(2) bond, and the fraction of sp(2) bonds increases with the energy of Ar ion increasing. The stress of the film decreases with the increase of the Ar ion energy. The RMS and etching pits on the surface of film increase with the increase of Ar ion bombarding energy. The friction test indicates that Ar ion bombardment has an important influence on initial friction coefficient, but just has little influence on steady state friction coefficient. The steady state friction coefficient of film keeps about 0.1, which shows a good antiwear property.