Interpretation of Electron Energy Loss Spectra from Hard Elastic Carbon and Related Materials

By incorporating a helium jet in the filtered arc ion deposition system previously used to produce hard diamond-like amorphous carbon film, carbon composite materials consisting of both amorphous carbon and nanoparticles can be deposited, some of which are both hard and elastic. These remarkable mechanical properties have been attributed to the possible sp3 linking of sp2 dominated fullerene-like nanotube. We investigate issues involved in the determination of atomic bonding character of carbon atoms in such structured materials, using electron energy loss spectroscopy.