Quality Control of Diamond Like Carbon Coating Layers
How to determine layer thickness using FTIR Microscopy
DLC-coatings (DLC – Diamond-Like-Carbon) have gained significant importance due to a steadily rising number of applications. For instance, DLC-coatings are applied on tooling components, parts of motorcycle engines, hard-disk
read heads, medical implants and high precision watches.The main desirable features are hardness, wear resistance
and low friction. The properties of the coating can be determined and altered to some extent by changing parameters
in the deposition process.One major property is the thickness of the DLC-layer. Its geometry and profile on technical components like toothed wheels or injection nozzles can be rather complicated. DLC coatings are generally deposited from a gas phase. To obtain the desired properties the thickness of the DLC
layer has to be monitored very closely.
