Structural changes in carbon condensates during heating in vacuum

Investigation of structural transformations in diamond-like carbon condensates, obtained by vacuum-plasma technology at their thermal heating in vacuum, is carried out by electron microscopy, microdiffraction and optical spectroscopy. It is established, that at condensate annealing at initial stage (T=673...873 K) the ordering of amorphous fields with trigonal and tetrahedral short-range order, mainly, takes place. The ordering of clusters with tetrahedral structure results in the formation of crystalline precipitations with fcc-lattice (a=0.36 nm), with size up to 25 nm...35 nm. Later on with annealing temperature increase the intensification of condensate graphitization degree with turbostratic graphite formation is observed. At T=1273 K graphitization captures all structural components of carbon film; packs of turbostratic graphite disordered along C axis of hexagonal lattices are set up parallel to substrate surface. Crystal structure with fcc-lattice undergoes decomposition, and dendritic crystals of graphite and CVI phase are formed