Pulsed Filtered Cathodic Arc Plasma Deposition Equipment Developed And The Substrate Floating Potential

Pulsed, Filtered Cathode Arc Plasma Deposition (PFCAPD) is a new deposition technology for a range of metals and compounds films free of the microdroplets associated with conventional arc evaporation, and it seems as one of the best methods to deposition hydrogen-free diamond like carbon which has widespread applications for its unique properties.In this paper, it was introduced of the system designing, debugging and optimizing. The substrate saturation ion current and film deposition rate were measured and ion efficiency was obtained.Some new phenomenons were discovered. The width of trigger current changes with the discharge condition, it is only 100u.s when let the trigger source work alone, but it can rise up to 300us with the arc current and magnetic field.It was found that the substrate floating potential changes a lot when the grounded state of arc source changed. Under typical discharge condition, the substrate floating potential is -5V as the arc source is floated to the ground, but drops to -60V in the case of the anode being grounded. In order to obtain similar deposition condition, very different bias must be applied to the substrate when the grounding of the arc source is different.At last, carbon films were deposited and their properties were measured. The films are very smooth and large particles were well filtered.