Effect of process parameters on the properties of diamond like carbon films deposition by microwave surface-wave plasma CVD

Diamond like carbon (DLC) thin films were deposited on various substrates, such as, silicon, quartz and ITO substrates at low temperature (≪100 °C) by microwave (MW) surface-wave plasma (SWP) chemical vapor deposition (CVD), for solar cell application. The methane (CH4), ethylene (C2H4) and acetylene (C2H2) were used as carbon precursors, while argon was used as carrier gas. Nitrogen is used as dopant. The deposited DLC films were characterized by UV/VIS/NIR spectrophotometer, Raman, FT-IR and XPS measurements. In this paper, we report some experimental results of the optical and structural properties of the films; the results suggested that it is possible to control film growth rate and optical band gap, and consequently improve photoconductivity by proper selection of deposition parameters, optimizing dopants and appropriate deposition temperature. Our research work can be realize cheap, reasonably environmentally friendly and high efficiency solar cell.