Chemical analysis of CNx thin films produced by pulsed laser ablation

We present an investigation of the effect of the process parameters, namely deposition pressure, laser fluence and substrate temperature, on growth and bonding state of carbon nitride (CN"x) thin films deposited by Nd:YAG laser (1064nm) ablation of a graphite target in nitrogen atmosphere. Based on the comparative and quantitative analysis of changes in measured infrared spectroscopy (IR) versus X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) spectra and on a critical review of the existing interpretation of IR and XPS data, a growth condition that lead to the synthesis of hard and elastics films having properties close to the those fullerene-like CN"x is proposed.