Sticking of hydrocarbon radicals on different amorphous hydrogenated carbon surfaces: a molecular dynamics study

Abstract

In this study we investigate how the hydrogen flux administered to amorphous hydrogenated carbon (a-C : H) samples influences the sticking probability of hydrocarbon radicals on these samples. We bombard a-C : H samples that were previously subjected to different hydrogen fluxes with hydrocarbon radicals. The energy of the radicals is 10 eV. The sample temperatures are 700 and 1000 K. The results show that the sticking probability is larger on samples pre-irradiated with a higher hydrogen flux caused by the higher sp² fraction in the sample. This suggests that redeposition can contribute to the observed flux dependency of the carbon erosion yield.