Changing carbon films by highly charged ions

Carbon films exist in a variety of modifications ranging from soft amorphous carbon film (a-C) to hard diamond-like carbon (DLC) films [1]. Due to their diverse proper-ties carbon films are technologically important materials, especially for protective, biomedical, or field emission coatings. In addition, special forms such as fullerene-like films have attracted the scientific interest for their special structure. Many of the properties of the carbon films are intrinsically related to their nanostructure which in turn is strongly related to the existence of sp2 and sp3 hybridized phases.
The nanostructure of the carbon films depends strongly on the preparation conditions but are as well modified by the irradiation with ions. Irradiation with single charged heavy ions at high energy normally turns the films amor-phous reducing the amount of sp3 and sp2 hybridized phases [2]. Here, we present systematic studies of irradia-tion of carbon films by highly charged argon and xenon ions with low kinetic energy.