The thermally-induced structural evolution of silicon- and oxygen-containing hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H:Si:O) was investigated by X-ray photoelectron and absorption spectroscopy, as well as molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The spectroscopic results indicate that the introduction of Si and O in hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H) increases the activation energy for the conversion of sp3- to sp2-bonded C. MD simulations indicate that the higher thermal stability of a-C:H:Si:O compared to a-C:H derives from the lower fraction of strained C-C sp3 bonds in a-C:H:Si:O.
@article{arxiv.1711.00957,
title = {Thermally-Induced Structural Evolution of Silicon- and Oxygen-Containing Hydrogenated Amorphous Carbon},
author = {Filippo Mangolini and James Hilbert and J. Brandon McClimon and Jennifer R. Lukes and Robert W. Carpick},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1711.00957},
year = {2017}
}