Effect of Improved Surface Wetability and Adhesion of Undulated Diamond-like Carbon Structure with r.f. PE-CVD

This paper investigated the wetting and adhesion property of undulated DLC film with surface morphology controlled for a reduced real area of contact. The undulated DLC Films were prepared by 13.56 MHZ radio frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (r.f. PECVD) by using nanoscale Cu dots surface on a Si (100) substrate. FE-SEM, AFM analysis showed that the after repeated deposition and plasma induced damage with Ar ions, the surface was nanoscale undulated. This phenomenon changed the surface morphology of DLC surface. Raman spectra of film with changed morphology revealed that the plasma induced damage with Ar ions significantly suppressed the graphitization of DLC structure. Also, it was observed that while the untreated flat DLC surfaces had wetting angle starting ranged from 72˚ and adhesion force of 333ni. Had wetting angle the undulated DLC surfaces, which resemble the surface morphology of a cylindrical shape, increased up to 104˚ and adhesion force decreased down to 11 nN. The measurements agree with Hertz and JKR models. The surface undulation was affected mainly by several factors: the surface morphology affinity to cylindrical shape, reduction of the real area of contact and air pockets trapped in cylindrical asperities of the surface.