High reflectance ta-C coatings in the extreme ultraviolet

The extreme ultraviolet (EUV) reflectance of amorphous tetrahedrally coordinated carbon films (ta-C) prepared by filtered cathodic vacuum arc was measured in the 30-188-nm range at near normal incidence. The measured reflectance of films grown with average ion energies in the ~70-140-eV range was significantly larger than the reflectance of a C film grown with average ion energy of ~20 eV and of C films deposited by sputtering or evaporation. The difference is attributed to a large proportion of sp3 atom bonding in the ta-C film. This high reflectance is obtained for films deposited onto room-temperature substrates. The reflectance of ta-C films is higher than the standard single-layer coating materials in the EUV spectral range below 130 nm. A self-consistent set of optical constants of ta-C films was obtained with the Kramers-Krönig analysis using ellipsometry measurements in the 190-950 nm range and the EUV reflectance measurements. These optical constants allowed calculating the EUV reflectance of ta-C films at grazing incidence for applications such as free electron laser mirrors.