Electrical Properties and Carrier Transport Behavior of Cu Doped Amorphous Carbon Films

doi:10.11901/1005.3093.2022.667

Chinese Journal of Materials Research

2023, Vol. 37

Issue (10): 747-758 DOI: 10.11901/1005.3093.2022.667

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Electrical Properties and Carrier Transport Behavior of Cu Doped Amorphous Carbon Films

YAN Chunliang¹^,², GUO Peng², ZHOU Jingyuan², WANG Aiying²^,³(

)

^1.School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
^2.Key Laboratory of Marine Materials and Related Technologies, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Marine Materials and Protective Technologies, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo 315201, China
^3.Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

Cite this article:

YAN Chunliang, GUO Peng, ZHOU Jingyuan, WANG Aiying. Electrical Properties and Carrier Transport Behavior of Cu Doped Amorphous Carbon Films. Chinese Journal of Materials Research, 2023, 37(10): 747-758.

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Abstract

The work aims to study the effect of doped Cu content on the structure, electrical properties and carrier transport behavior of amorphous carbon (a-C) films. The Cu doped a-C (a-C:Cu) films were deposited by a homemade High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering set with the Cu-C composite target as sputtering source. A series of a-C: Cu films with Cu content less than 10% (atomic fraction) were deposited by adjusting the position of substrates. The results demonstrated that increasing the doped Cu content led to the enhancement of the content and cluster size of sp²-C in films. Particularly, as the Cu content increased from 2.77% to 7.28%, the sp²-C content increased from 48% to 54%. Accordingly, this decreased the bandgap width from 3.87 eV to 2.93 eV, which corresponds to the reduction of electrical resistivity and transmittance in a-C: Cu films. For a-C: Cu films with Cu content in the range of 2.77%~7.28%, the voltage was positively linear correlated with the excitation in the I-V test, suggesting the dominated ohmic behavior. The resistance of all the a-C:Cu films decreased monotonically with the increase of temperature, demonstrating the typical semiconductor behavior. Specifically, when the Cu content varied in the range of 2.77%~3.88%, the electrical transport of a-C: Cu films was ascribed to the three-dimensional Mott-type variable range hopping conduction in lower temperature from 150 K to 250 K and the thermal activation transport within higher temperature range of 250~350 K, respectively. However, for a-C: Cu films with Cu content of 5.4%~7.28%, only Mott-type variable range hopping conduction played the key role for the carrier transport in temperature of 150~350 K. The results showed that the optical and electrical properties of amorphous carbon films could be significantly controlled by doping Cu, which brought forward the promising potential to develop the carbon-based photoelectric devices with high-performance.

Key words: foundational discipline in materials science electrical properties high power impulse magnetron sputtering Cu doped amorphous carbon band structure

Received: 16 December 2022

ZTFLH:

O484

Fund: National Nature Science Foundation of China(U20A20296);Science and Technology 2025 Innovation Project of Ningbo(2020Z023);K C Wong Education Foundation Lu Jiaxi International Team Project(GJTD-2019-13);Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province(LQ20E020004)

Corresponding Authors: WANG Aiying, Tel: (0574)86685170, E-mail: aywang@nimte.ac.cn

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https://www.cjmr.org/EN/10.11901/1005.3093.2022.667 OR https://www.cjmr.org/EN/Y2023/V37/I10/747

Fig.1 Schematic diagram of the HiPIMS deposition equipment

Fig.2 SEM cross-sectional morphology of a-C:Cu films (a) S1, (b) S2, (c) S3, (d) S4

Fig.3 3D-AFM images of a-C: Cu films (a) S1, (b) S2, (c) S3, (d) S4

Fig.4 XPS spectra (a), the contents of C, O, Cu (b), C 1s spectra (c), sp², sp³, and C-O/C=O contents (d), Cu 2p spectra (e) and Cu LMM Auger spectra (f) of a-C: Cu films with different Cu contents

Fig.5 Raman spectra (a), the fitting result (b) of a-C: Cu films with different Cu contents

Fig.6 XRD spectra of a-C:Cu films with different Cu contents

Fig.7 HRTEM image and corresponding SAED of a-C: Cu film with 2.77% (a, b) and 7.28% Cu (c, d)

Fig.8 EELS spectrum of a-C: Cu film with 2.77% and 7.28% Cu

Fig.9 I-V characteristic plots (a) and electrical resistiv-ity (b) at 300 K of the a-C: Cu films with differ-ent Cu contents

Fig.10 I-V plots of the a-C: Cu films with different Cu contents from 150 to 350 K

Fig.11 R-T behaviors of a-C: Cu films with different Cu contents from 150 to 350 K

Fig.12 Relationship between ln(R) and T^-1/4 (a, c, e, f) and T^-1 (b, d) at different temperature ranges for the samples with different Cu contents. The red lines are fitting results

Fig.13 Transmittance (a), Tauc plots (b) and optical bandgap (c) of a-C: Cu films with different Cu contents

Fig.14 Secondary electron cutoff (a), the distance from valence band (E_v) to the Fermi level (E_F) (b) and band structure (c) of a-C: Cu films with different contents

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