Evaluation of amorphous carbon nitride thin film for magnetic rigid thin film disk by IR spectroscopy

A set of amorphous carbon nitride, a-C:N, films on the magnetic rigid disk with different sputter parameters were analyzed by IR spectroscopy. The IR spectra of a-C:N thin films are sensitive to the change of the sputter parameters, such as the pallet speed, the pre-mixture percentage nitrogen in the carrier gas and the sputter power. The comparison of ESCA analysis with the IR data shows that nitrogen atoms incorporate in the graphite ring in different modes as the sputter parameters change. The most influential parameter is the percentage of pre-mixture nitrogen in the carrier gas. As the percentage of N/sub 2/ in the carrier gas increases to 40, the nitrogen and carbon which is in the sp/sup 2/ bonded state becomes more ordered.