Study of the conductivity of nitrogen doped tetrahedral amorphous carbon films

The conductivity of nitrogen incorporated tetrahedral amorphous carbon (taC:N) films prepared by filtered cathodic vacuum arc (FCVA) system was studied. The film resistivity varied as a function of nitrogen content in a wide nitrogen content range from 1 to 23at.%. An interesting phenomenon of the photoconductivity for the films was found, that the resistivity of those films with low nitrogen content (<5at.%) increased due to the light irradiation. This kind of behavior of photoconductivity had not been discussed in previous papers on taC:N films.