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Analysis of carbon materials by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and X-ray absorption spectroscopy
(2003)
Since hard coating such as ta:C films are of growing interest for protecting surfaces of industrial machines and high capacity tools against wear and friction or for biomedical applications, more information about the structure-to-property relation is required. Therefore, core level X-ray photoelectron sprectroscopy and X-ray absorption spectroscopy and spectromicroscopy are used to derive chemical information about selected carbon species.
Selected FTIR, XPS and NEXAFS spectroscopy results obtained with films deposited with different plasma polymerization processes and different monomers (styrene, acetylene, ethylene and butadiene) are presented. In detail FTIR spectra, XPS surveys, XPS valence bands and core level signals including shake-up features as well as carbon K-edge absorption spectra are qualitatively and, in some cases, semi-quantitatively considered. Information on the film formation, the chemistry of the films and the film stability against air exposure are derived from spectroscopic features. With styrene chemically rather well defined plasma polymer layers can be formed with rather high deposition rates applying a pulse plasma process. Using ethylene, acetylene or butadiene as a monomer in the plasma deposition process the deposition rates are smaller. Using these monomers plasma polymer films can be obtained with a primary chemical structure which is similar to each other but more or less different from those of the respective conventional polymers. The main difference between these samples is their individual concentration of unsaturated carbon species. Finally, a technologically relevant example, i.e. a plasma deposited polymer barrier layer deposited on the inner wall of a poly(ethylene) vessel is briefly considered.
Several possibilities exist to produce a modified polymer surface with a high density of only one sort of functional group such as: (i) the plasma grafting of unfragmented monomer molecules and their polymerization forms OH, NH2, COOH groups, etc. in concentrations of approximately 25 groups per 100 C atoms; (ii) selective plasma bromination provides 1025 CBr groups; (iii) the plasma oxidation of polymer surfaces in an O2 plasma followed by the chemical reduction of all O-containing groups to OH groups by diborane, vitride (Na complex) or LiAlH4 yields 914 OH groups per 100 carbon atoms; and (iv) the grafting of spacers with different endgroups onto OH or CBr groups produces 710 spacer molecules/100 C. This work was focused on the formation of thin plasma deposited polymer layers with a maximum of (homo)functional groups and with a minimum of chemical irregularities using the pulsed plasma technique. The monomers were allylalcohol, allylamine, acrylonitrile and acrylic acid. The further intent was to study the interactions of functional groups (OH, COOH, NH2) and deposited metals (Cr, Al, Ti). It was expected that more basic (NH2), weakly basic or neutral (OH) or more acidic (COOH) groups would show different interactions and chemical reactions with metal atoms.
The retention of chemical structure and functional groups during plasma polymerization was investigated. Usually plasma polymer layers, prepared by a continuous wave radio-frequency plasma, are often chemically irregular in their structure and composition. To minimize these irregularities low wattages and the pulsed plasma technique were applied to avoid fragmentations. The first goal was to produce plasma polymers comprising double or triple bonds as precursors for electrically conducting polymers. Acetylene, ethylene, butadiene and polystyrene were used as monomers and deposited as thin polymer films by pulsed plasmas of low wattages. Styrene polymerization was strongly enhanced in the dark phase (plasma off) of a pulsed r.f. plasma caused by the reactivity of the vinyl-type double bond. This could be confirmed by a verification of a rather high chemical regularity of the film sample. The oxygen content of this film measured by X-ray photoelectron spectrometry (XPS) was in situ 0% and after 24 h exposure to air lower than 1%. Additionally, post-plasma oxidations of trapped radicals with air could be suppressed using NO gas as radical quencher. Such quenched plasma polymer layers were completely stable against oxidation for a number of weeks. During the low-wattage pulse plasma polymerization metal atoms were simultaneously or layer by layer evaporated into the growing layer and in situ measured by XPS. These metal atoms are acting as dopants. Here, Li, K, Mg and Cr were used at different concentrations providing electrical conductivity and magnetic properties for the film.