Diagnostics of nitrogen implanted diamond-like carbon films by optical and microhardness measurements

Comparative study of nitrogen implanted a-C:H Nm has been carried out by micro-Raman and nanoindentetion techniques. At high dose nitrogen implantation (1.10(17) cm(-2)) the structural inhomogeneities are observed in the implanted region. After implantation a significant broadening and energy shift of both G- and D-bands in Raman spectra are observed. On the other hand, film hardness measurements reveal the existence of more dramatic differences between both implanted regions with homogeneous and structural inhomogeneities. The film hardness in the inhomogeneous region more than by 5 times exceed the one in the homogeneous region. The hardness improvement of ion implanted a-C:H film is related to Nm disordering and ion beam induced phase-structure transformation in the implanted region.