Effects of heat treatment on amorphous carbon nitride prepared by reactive magnetron sputtering Original Research Article

The amorphous CNx powders were prepared by reactive DC magnetron sputtering. Based on the DTA-TG analysis, a characteristic temperature (1440°C) was determined at which heat treatment was employed to crystallize the amorphous powders. Subsequent structural and compositional analysis were carried out on the heat-treated samples by using XRD, scanning Auger. The powder diffraction pattern revealed that α-C3N4 is the main crystalline thermodynamically stable phase in the predicted crystalline carbon nitrides. Nano crystallites were observed with compositions very close to that of the C3N4 crystal.