Electron beam irradiation of hydrogenated amorphous carbon films

Abstract

The effect of electron irradiation on hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C : H) films is investigated on both as-deposited and thermally annealed films and is compared to the effect of thermal annealing. As for the as-deposited film, both electron irradiation and thermal annealing result in a change in the film structure from diamond-like to graphite-like. In the case of electron irradiation, such a phase transformation proceeds in a logarithmic way as a function of the electron dose. No electron-induced effect is observed on previously annealed films. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.