Raman Studies of Structural Changes in Diamond-like Carbon Films on Si Induced by Ultrafast Laser Ablation

In this study, the diamond-like carbon (DLC), a tetrahedral amorphous carbon sample deposited on Si, was irradiated using a picosecond laser. We evaluated the picosecond-laser-induced structural and morphological changes in DLC using micro-Raman spectroscopy via line measurements. We obtained the spatial distribution of the structure and morphology of DLC on Si by regression analysis of the Raman spectra. The photo-induced crater could be categorized into four regions: peripheral, morphological-change, structural-changes, and ablated regions. The structure and morphology of the peripheral region were similar to those of the as-received DLC. In the morphological-change region, which is inside the periphery region, the thickness of the DLC decreased without any structural changes. At the center of the crater, which is shown in black in the optical image, two regions were identified by Raman spectroscopy. On the outer side, there is a structural-change region where the graphitization of DLC materialized with a reduction in the film thickness. Inside the structural-change region, there is an ablated region where the DLC was degraded by laser ablation.