Diamond-like carbon films and their progress

In order to make the research status of diamond-like carbon (DLC) thin-films be well understood, the characteristics and applications of the DLC thin films were reviewed, and the preparation technologies were compared and analyzed, including the physical vapor deposition (PVD) methods and the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) methods. And the laser-induced damage properties and the methods to improve the laser-induce damage threshold of DLC films were discussed. The results show that the hardness and the residue stress of DLC films deposited by the physical vapor deposition methods can respectively reach to 40 GPa~80 GPa and 0.9 GPa~2.2 GPa, but the chemical vapor deposition methods has been less used because the deposition rate of DLC films decreases greatly introduced by the reaction gas. Moreover, some methods of the optimization of the electrical field intensity of film stack, the reasonable preparation technology, the laser conditioning, and the application of external electrical field can effectively improve the laser-induced damage threshold of DLC films, and the laser-induced damage threshold of DLC films can get 2.4 J/cm2 at present.