Molecular Dynamics Simulation for the Influence of Incident Angles of Energetic Carbon Atoms on the Structure and Properties of Diamond-like Carbon Films

Xiaowei Li, Peiling Ke, Kwang-Ryeol Lee, Aiying Wang
 

The influence of incident angles of energetic carbon atoms (0–60°) on the structure and properties of diamondlike carbon (DLC) films was investigated by the molecular dynamics simulation using a Tersoff interatomic potential. The present simulation revealed that as the incident angles increased from0 to 60°, the surface roughness of DLC films increased and themore porous structurewas generated. Along the growth direction of DLC films, the whole system could be divided into four regions including substrate region, transition region, stable region and surface region except the case at the incident angle of 60°. When the incident angle was 45°, the residual stress was significantly reduced by 12% with little deterioration of mechanical behavior. The further structure analysis using both the bond angles and bond length distributions indicated that the compressive stress reduction mainly resulted from the relaxation of highly distorted C–C bond length.