Method for preparing boron carbide film by evaporation
Technical Field
The invention belongs to the field of vacuum coating, and particularly relates to a method for preparing a boron carbide film by evaporation.
Background
Boron carbide (B 4 C) is one of the hardest superhard materials in nature, with hardness inferior to diamond. Boron carbide has wide application prospect in the fields of machinery, electronics, coating films and the like by virtue of excellent physical properties. The boron carbide film has high permeability in an infrared spectrum region, has the advantages of high melting point, low density, high damage threshold and the like, and is an ideal protective material for an infrared optical lens.
The preparation method of the boron carbide film mainly comprises a Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) method and a Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) method, wherein the chemical vapor deposition method is used for depositing a film at a very high temperature (about 1000 ℃), and many substrates cannot be deposited at the very high temperature, so that the selection range of substrate materials is limited. Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) includes magnetron sputtering, reactive sputtering, etc., which can be performed at a relatively low substrate temperature, but most of the deposited boron carbide films are amorphous, difficult to realize crystalline structures, and not sufficiently high in hardness.
Chinese patent publication No. CN101314842a discloses a method for preparing boron carbide film by electron beam evaporation technique. The method can prepare amorphous boron carbide films, boron carbide films with polycrystalline structures, various boron carbide films with different B, C component proportions, and the prepared boron carbide films have smooth surfaces, compact films and good uniformity. However, the method needs to obtain the boron carbide material in advance, and the boron carbide material is sintered at a high temperature of 1400-1600 ℃ in the preparation process, so that the mixed uniformity of carbon and boron is poor, and elemental carbon or boron is generated during evaporation coating instead of a compound of the elemental carbon or the boron, thereby influencing the performance of the finally prepared boron carbide film.
Disclosure of Invention
Aiming at the problems in the prior art, the invention aims to provide a method for preparing a boron carbide film by evaporation, which can prepare the boron carbide film at low temperature and avoid the limitation caused by the need of high-temperature plating in a Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) method. Meanwhile, the method can be applied to an evaporator to realize continuous completion of the infrared antireflection film and the boron carbide protective film.
In order to achieve the purpose of the invention, the specific technical scheme is as follows:
A method for preparing a boron carbide film by evaporation, comprising the following steps:
Placing boron powder in a crucible of an evaporation coating machine, placing a cleaned and dried substrate above the crucible in the evaporation coating machine, vacuumizing the evaporation coating machine, starting an electron gun to melt and evaporate the boron powder by using a high-energy electron beam, starting an ion source, generating heavy inert gas ions and carbon ions by using mixed gas of heavy inert gas and carbon source gas through glow discharge, and reacting the ionized high-energy carbon ions with evaporated boron to generate a boron carbide film.
Preferably, the purity of the boron powder is not less than 99.9%.
Preferably, the heavy inert gas is at least one of helium, neon, argon, krypton and xenon, the carbon source gas is at least one of methane, butane and acetylene, and the substrate is one of a silicon substrate, a germanium substrate, a zinc sulfide substrate or a zinc selenide substrate.
Preferably, the heavy inert gas is helium, and the carbon source gas is methane.
Preferably, the ion source used is a hall source.
Preferably, in the mixed gas used by the ion source, the volume ratio of the heavy inert gas is 1% -20%, and the volume ratio of the carbon source gas is 80% -99%.
Preferably, the evaporation coating machine is vacuumized to a vacuum degree of below 2.0 x 10 -3 Pa.
Preferably, the temperature of the substrate is controlled to be 130-200 ℃ during film coating.
Preferably, the evaporation rate of the boron powder after melting is set to 2-10 angstroms per second.
Preferably, the ion source parameters are that the neutralization current is 0.3-0.6 ampere, the neutralization gas flow is 5-8 sccm, the anode voltage is 110-200 volts, and the anode current is 1.5-3 amperes.
Compared with the prior art, the invention has the beneficial effects that:
According to the technical scheme, the boron carbide film can be prepared at low temperature, and the limitation caused by the high-temperature plating required by a Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) method is avoided. Meanwhile, the method can be applied to an evaporator to realize continuous completion of the infrared antireflection film and the boron carbide protective film.
The invention does not need to prefabricate the boron carbide film material in advance, the film plating process is completed by adopting full chemical reaction, and no elemental material exists.
Detailed Description
The present invention will be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the preferred embodiments for the purpose of facilitating understanding of the present invention, but the scope of protection of the present invention is not limited to the specific embodiments described below.
Unless defined otherwise, all technical and scientific terms used hereinafter have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the scope of the present invention.
Unless otherwise specifically indicated, the various raw materials, reagents, instruments, equipment and the like used in the present invention are commercially available or may be prepared by existing methods.
Example 1
The embodiment provides a method for preparing a boron carbide film by evaporation, which comprises the following steps:
(1) The germanium sheet with the thickness of 2mm and the diameter of 25mm is dried after ultrasonic cleaning, so that the film stripping caused by dirt on the surface of the lens is avoided;
(2) Placing boron powder with purity not less than 99.9% into a crucible of an evaporation coating machine, placing the cleaned germanium sheet into a fixture of the evaporation coating machine, adjusting the position to be right above an opening of the crucible, vacuumizing a cavity to a pressure below 2.0X10 -3 Pa, and setting the heating temperature of the coating to be 150 ℃;
(3) Starting an electron gun to melt boron powder after the vacuum and the temperature reach, slowly increasing the beam current of the electron gun from 0 watt to 300 watt, avoiding the film material from splashing due to the instant rise of the temperature when the power is increased too fast, and setting the evaporation rate to 2 angstrom per second after the boron powder is melted;
(4) Starting an ion source (Hall source) while evaporating boron powder, setting parameters of 0.3A of neutralization current, 5sccm of neutralization gas flow, 180V of anode voltage and 2A of anode current, and setting the gas inlet ratio of the ion source to methane with the volume ratio of 90% and argon with the volume ratio of 10%;
(5) The thickness of the boron carbide film is determined according to the coating speed multiplied by the time, and the embodiment sets that the 2 angstrom speed lasts for 1 kilosecond to obtain the boron carbide film with the thickness of 200 nanometers;
(6) And standing for 20 minutes after coating is completed, cooling, releasing stress, and taking out the germanium sheet to obtain the boron carbide film with corresponding thickness.
Example 2
The embodiment provides a method for preparing a boron carbide film by evaporation, which comprises the following steps:
(1) A silicon wafer with the thickness of 2 mm and the diameter of 25 mm is wiped clean by polishing solution, acetone and alcohol, so that the surface of a lens is prevented from being stained to cause stripping;
(2) Placing boron powder with purity not less than 99.9% into a crucible of an evaporation coating machine, placing the cleaned silicon wafer into a working fixture of the evaporation coating machine, adjusting the position to be right above an opening of the crucible, vacuumizing a cavity to a pressure below 1.5 x 10 -3 Pa, and setting the heating temperature of coating to 160 ℃;
(3) And after the vacuum and the temperature reach, an electron gun is started to melt boron powder, the beam current of the electron gun is slowly increased from 0 watt to 300 watt, and the phenomenon that the film material is splashed due to the instant rising of the temperature when the power is increased too fast is avoided. Setting the evaporation rate to 3 angstroms per second after the boron powder is melted;
(4) The boron powder is evaporated, meanwhile, the ion source is started to set parameters of 0.5 ampere of neutralization current, 8sccm of neutralization gas flow, 200 volts of anode voltage and 2.4 amperes of anode current, and the ion source gas is set to be introduced with the proportion of methane of 95% and argon of 5%;
(5) The thickness of the boron carbide film is determined according to the coating speed multiplied by the time, and the embodiment sets that the 3 angstrom speed lasts for 1 kilosecond to obtain the boron carbide film with the thickness of 300 nanometers;
(6) And standing for 30 minutes after coating is completed, cooling, releasing stress, and taking out the silicon wafer to obtain the boron carbide film with corresponding thickness.
The above is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention, and is not intended to limit the present invention, but various modifications and variations can be made to the present invention by those skilled in the art. Any modification, equivalent replacement, improvement, etc. made within the spirit and principle of the present invention should be included in the scope of the present invention.