Characteristics of Diamond-Like Carbon Films Fabricated by Using a Filtered Vacuum Arc System for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) based on diamond-like carbon (DLC) anti-reflection coating (ARC) thin films are investigated. The DLC film was proposed to improve the cell performance of DSSC devices. In this work, the DLC films were fabricated by using the FVA (filtered vacuum arc) method, the structural, optical, and physical properties of the fabricated DLC films with various film thicknesses were experimentally investigated. All DLC films showed smoother and more uniform surfaces with increasing film thickness. Furthermore, the values of rms surface roughness, friction coefficient, the refractive index, and the absorption coefficient increased with increasing film thickness, the hardness and the elastic modulus of the DLC films were improved. These results are associated with the increased sp(3) contents in the amorphous carbon film due to the effects of the energetic ion bombardment during film deposition.