A thin diamond-like carbon (DLC) film was deposited onto a densely packed "forest" of vertically aligned multiwalled carbon nanotubes (VACNT). DLC deposition caused the tips of the CNTs to clump together to form a microstructured surface. Field-emission tests of this new composite material show the typical low threshold voltages for carbon nanotube structures (2 V μm(-1)) but with greatly incre...

In this article, we report a new route to synthesize diamond by converting "solid" carbon nanofibers with a Spark Plasma Sintering system under low temperature and pressure (even at atmospheric pressure). Well-crystallized diamond crystals are obtained at the tips of the carbon nanofibers after sintering at 1500 °C and atmospheric pressure. Combining with scanning electron microscopy, transmiss...

The current status of diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings for biomedical applications is reviewed with emphasis on load-bearing coatings. Although diamond-like carbon coating materials have been studied for decades, no indisputably successful commercial biomedical applications for high load situations exist today. High internal stress, leading to insufficient adhesion of thick coatings, is the e...

We describe the formation of highly uniform Quenched-carbon (Q-carbon) layers by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) followed low-energy Ar+ ion bombardment to achieve wafer-scale integration Q-carbon films. After PECVD, 9 nm and 20 thick silicon-doped diamond-like carbon (Si-DLC) films showed complete conversion into using 250eV ions via negative biasing. However, this was only p...

Low-energy ion beam modification was proposed to create graphene on the top of the insulated diamond-like carbon films. In such low-temperature fabrication process the surface of the amorphous carbon could crystallize to graphene as a result of point defect creation and enhanced diffusion caused by the ion bombardment. In the experiment 130 eV argon ion irradiation was used. After the modificat...

December1999 Symposium Paper May 2000 final, revised version for IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science: July 13, 2001 This work was supported through the CRADA BG98-084(01) of the ER-LTR Program of the U.S. Department of Energy, under Contract No. DE-AC03-76SF00098, by CVC-Veeco, Inc., the CRADA Industrial Partner, by the National Storage Industry Consortium (NSIC), and the Computer Mechanics Lab...

Amorphous carbon films are deposited employing high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) at pulsing frequencies of 250 Hz and 1 kHz. Films are also deposited by direct current magnetron sputtering (dcMS), for reference. In both HiPIMS and dcMS cases, unipolar pulsed negative bias voltages up to 150 V are applied to the substrate to tune the energy of the positively charged ions that bomb...