Ion irradiation effects in diamond and diamond like carbon thin films

Ion irradiation effects on diamond and diamond like carbon (DLC) films have attracted great interest in recent years. DLC films contain varying amounts of hydrogen attached to carbon. Irradiation leads to hydrogen loss, increase or decrease of both sp3 and sp2 bonded sites, changes in bond angle disorder, etc. Microstructural changes caused by ion irradiations have been found to be complex depending upon the microstructure of as-deposited film and the deposition technique used along with the source gases employed. A brief review of the limited amount of information available on the subject is presented. (author)