Focused ion beam optical patterning of ta-C films

Optical contrast formation by Ga+ ion implantation has been made use of for focused ion beam (FIB) writing of nano-scale optical patterns in tetrahedral amorphous carbon (ta-C). Initial UV-VIS optical spectroscopy results with Ga+ broad-beam ion implantation have shown well expressed ion beam induced photo-darkening effect in thin ta-C films. It is manifested by a significant shift of the optical absorption edge to lower photon energies as obtained from optical transmission measurements of ta-C samples, implanted with Ga+ at ion energy E = 20 keV and ion fluences D = 3e14 and 3e15 cm-2. This shift is accompanied by a considerable increase of the absorption coefficient (photo-darkening effect) in the measured photon energy range (0.5÷3.0 eV). The obtained optical contrast (between implanted and unimplanted film material) could be made use of in the area of high-density optical data storage using focused Ga+ ion beams. The underlying structural modifications, induced by the Ga+ ion bombardment, have been investigated by x-ray photo-electron spectroscopy (XPS), transmission (TEM) and scanning (SEM) electron microscopy measurements. Focused ion beam (FIB) implanted patterns in ta-C samples, obtained with a fluence of 5e15 cm-2, are also presented.