Conductive amorphous hydrocarbon film for bio-sensor formed by low temperature neutral beam enhanced chemical vapor deposition

Abstract Amorphous hydrocarbon (aCH) material is receiving plenty of attention due to its possible wide application. However, one hurdle facing this application is that high temperature is required to express conductivity of aCH, e.g., post annealing or deposition at high temperature. To form a conductive aCH on a substrate controlled below room temperature, we have developed a neutral beam enhanced chemical vapor deposition (NBECVD) method to control a hydrocarbon molecular structure that has a large conjugated system with delocalized π electrons in film. For material gas, we prepared toluene. As a result, we obtained a highly conductive carbon on a Si substrate with −50 °C using only toluene by optimizing the state of disassociated material gas. From an evaluation of film structure, a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon molecular structure was grown and contained in film because NBECVD could avoid irradiating UV to the Si substrate during deposition. Thus, an excited large conjugated chain structure generated by toluene in plasma could be maintained and polymerized on the Si substrate. Furthermore, the conductive aCH film could work as electrode in solution by electrochemical examination. Additionally, we found that nitrogen doped into conductive aCH could increase the working current of an electrode.