Ion beam synthesis of diamond-like carbon thin films containing copper nanocrystals

Amorphous carbon thin films containing 0–50 at. % Cu have been grown by mass selected ion beam deposition in order to synthesize isolated Cu nanoparticles within a diamond-like matrix. Raman spectroscopy and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy show that the sp3 content of the matrix decreases with increasing Cu content. Simultaneously, the mean particle size of the embedded Cu nanocrystals increases, as x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy analysis reveal. There is apparently no dependence of the matrix structure on the Cu+ ion energy, while the Cu content is strongly influenced by this deposition parameter.