Formation of Carbon Nitride Films by Nitrogen Ion Bombardment on C₆₀ Films

The synthesis of covalent carbon nitride films becomes an important subject in the materials research field. As a new synthetic method two low-energy (400 and 1000eV) nitrogen ion beams are used to bombard on C₆₀ thin films individually. The bombarded films are used for Raman and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements. The results of the analyses show that under the bombardment of 400eV nitrogen ion beam, the film still contains a large amount of undestructed C₆₀ molecules. In the case of l000eV bombardment, only a little amount of C₆₀ molecules is kept undestructed. The experimental results also show that the destructed carbon species will combine chemically with nitrogen ions to form stable covalent carbon nitride, confirmed by the Raman peaks of, e.g., 2240cm^-1. The XPS Nls and Cls lines also indicate the formation of covalent carbon nitride in the bombarded films.