Effects and uses of ion beams with diamond, DLC and fullerene films

Ion beams play a vital role in materials in different ways. ions of energies from eV to hundreds of MeV have been useful in different ways, e.g. the growth of thin films, modification of materials and the analysis of materials. Tens of keV to hundreds of keV ion beams are used for doping diamond, DLC and fullerene films. As damage results in this process, the radiation damage studies are of importance. Elastic recoil detection analysis (ERDA) using heavy ions is utilised for hydrogen and carbon depth profiling in DLC and diamond films. The analysis of DLC and diamond films by ion beam techniques provides a better understanding of the growth of these films. Other properties - adhesion, hardness resistivity, refractive index, etc. - can be correlated to the hydrogen content of the films, which is present from their growth process. High energy heavy ions are used for materials modification by inelastic collision process which results in either electronic excitation or ionisation of the atoms; it also causes breakage of C to H bonds with H loss in the film. The modifications produced by energetic ions have been desirable as well as undesirable. In the application of ion beams the promising area is the doping of diamond film for devices and doping of fullerene films with K for superconducting properties. There are exciting possibilities of using the columnar defects in these films generated by high energy heavy ions. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd