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A Raman spectroscopic analysis of thin-films of carbon

University of British Columbia

The thin-film carbon genome is often characterized in terms of the ternary phase diagram of Ferrari and Robertson [A. C. Ferrari and J. Robertson, “Interpretation of Raman spectra of disordered and amorphous carbon”, Physical Review B, vol. 61, no. 20, pp. 14095-14107, 2000]. This thesis aims to examine as to whether or not the shape and form of the Raman spectra, acquired from various forms of thin-film carbon, depends on its location within the aforementioned phase diagram. At the outset, the answer to this question remained unknown. I perform my analysis in two-parts: (1) the development of a systematic means of processing Raman spectral data, wherein all Raman spectra are treated, and (2) the determination of Raman spectral metrics associated with these thin-films of carbon, and the examination as to whether or not these metrics are related to the position of the corresponding samples within the ternary phase diagram of Ferrari and Robertson. First, six steps are identified that must be performed in order to evaluate ID/IG, namely: (1) acquisition, (2) smoothing, (3) baseline identification, (4) baseline removal, (5) peak decomposition, and (6) evaluation of ID/IG. The second aspect of this study aims to examine as to whether the form of the Raman spectrum is shaped by the location of the sample within the thin-film carbon genome, as defined by the ternary phase diagram of Ferrari and Robertson. The answer to this question is definitely yes. The identification of how the form of the Raman spectrum is related to the position of the sample within the thin-film carbon genome, as characterized through the ternary phase diagram of Ferrari and Robertson, represents an important advance in the field of thin-film carbon science, that had previously not been noted. One could speculate that if the other material properties associated with a given sample of thin-film carbon are also related to its position within the thin- film carbon genome, that these aforementioned material properties maybe related to these Raman spectral metrics. This has potential implications, both from a fundamental materials and applications perspective that will have to be explored further in the future.

Text

2019-05-17

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/70199

Electrical Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/