High wear durability of ECR-sputtered carbon films

We investigated the effect of ion irradiation on the wear of carbon films prepared by electron-cyclotron-resonance plasma (ECR) sputtering. The wear durability of the ECR-sputtered films was far superior to that of the RF-sputtered films. ECR-sputtered films made with a high energy ion irradiation showed the highest irradiation wear resistance, nearly equal to that of bulk diamond. We attribute this high durability to selective etching of the weakly bonded carbon atoms by the high-energy ion irradiation.