Pulsed laser deposition of amorphous carbon/silver nanocomposites

Metal/amorphous carbon (a-C:M) composite films are emerging as a category of very important engineering materials for surface protection. We implement pulsed laser deposition (PLD) to grow pure a-C and a-C:Ag nanocomposites. Our PLD process is assisted by a static electric field. We investigate the structural features of the a-C:Ag nanocomposites and the bonding configuration of the a-C matrix with respect to the electric field and the composition of the PLD target. For this study we use Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD).We show that the Ag mean grain size and the sp2 content of the a-C matrix are increasing with increasing Ag content in the films.