Effect of CO2 Laser Annealing on Microstructure and Optical Properties of Sputtered Silicon Carbide Nano-Scale Films

Silicon Carbide (SiC) nanolayers were deposited on several substrates using a Sputtering system with SiC target. Aim of this work is to present an alternative method for nanostructured silicon carbide films processing based on CO2 laser irradiation (wavelength, ? = 10.6 ?m). All the films were optimized in order to obtain a thickness of 100 nm. The combined effects of pressure and RF-DC power and CO2 laser annealing on the nanofilm microstructure was investigated by X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), Infrared Spectroscopy (IR), Glancing Incidence X-Ray Diffraction (GIXRD), UV-VIS-NIR Absorption and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). It has been found that the microstructure and optical properties of these materials can be controlled by CO2 laser power and irradiation time. The presence of ?-SiC and ?-SiC/?-SiC mixtures phases on silicon substrate was obtained using laser power ranging between 8W to 14W with 443? and 365? of grain size respectively. Crystallization