CARBON-FILMS OF AMORPHOUS AND ORIENTED GRAPHITIC STRUCTURE FROM FULLERENE ION-BEAM DEPOSITION

Energetic fullerene deposition has been performed with an intense, hig hly ionized beam in the kiloelectronvolt-energy energy range to form c arbon thin films. The deposited material is amorphic and essentially f ree of hydrogen that is bonded to carbon. The films show graphitic nan ocrystallites embedded in amorphous carbon which are preferentially or iented with the c-axis parallel to the substrate surface. With increas ing substrate temperature, the size of the crystallites increases toge ther with a decrease in the percentage of sp3-bonded carbon. There is evidence that the primary deposition product is mainly sp3-bonded carb on which then relaxes to form the oriented, graphitic nanocrystallites . The method of fullerene ion beam deposition has been used to form a dense amorphous carbon film on a single-crystalline fullerite film, wh ere the crystalline quality of the fullerite film is only insignifican tly affected by the deposition process.