Comparison of Transmission Electron Microscopy and X-Ray Reflectometry Data in the Study of the Structure of Silicon-Carbon Nanocomposite Films

Abstract

Vanadium-doped diamond-like silicon-carbon films have been studied by X-ray reflectometry and transmission electron microscopy. A comparison of the data obtained has shown that the layered structure of the films is retained over an area of about 100 mm² at a total film thickness of 3–4 µm and layer thicknesses of 10–40 nm. The film surface has been examined by semi-contact probe microscopy. It is demonstrated that the root-mean-square roughness decreases by an order of magnitude (from 2.0 to 0.2 nm) with an increase in the vanadium content in the film from 12 to 17 at %.