Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition Synthesizing Carbon Nitride Hard Thin Films

Using plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition and SiC and carbon buffer layers, we have obtained carbon nitride thin films on Si(100) and Si(111). The x-ray diffraction and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy are used to characterize the thin films. The Vickers hardness of the carbon nitride thin films is more than 5100 kgf/mm 2 and comparable to that of diamond.