Polymeric semiconducting carbon from fullerene by pulsed laser ablation

The polymeric semiconducting carbon films are grown on silicon and quartz substrates by excimer (XeCl) pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique using fullerene C₆₀ precursor. The substrate temperature is varied up to 300 °C. The structure and optical properties of the films strongly depend on the substrate temperature. The grain size is increased and uniform polymeric film with improved morphology at higher temperature is observed. The Tauc gap is about 1.35 eV for the film deposited at 100°C and with temperature the gap is decreased upto 1.1 eV for the film deposited at 250 °C and increased to about 1.4 eV for the film deposited at 300 °C. The optical absorption properties are improved with substrate temperature. Raman spectra show the presence of both G peak and D peak and are peaked at about 1590 cm^− 1 and 1360 cm^− 1, respectively for the film deposited at 100 °C. The G peak position remains almost unchanged while D peak has changed only a little with temperature might be due to its better crystalline structure compared to the typical amorphous carbon films and might show interesting in device such as, optoelectronic applications.