Evidence of diamond-like carbon phase formation due to 80 keV Xe+ ion impact on pencil-lead graphitic systems with oblique angle incidence.

We report on the effect of 80 keV Xe⁺ ion irradiation on the commercially available, sectioned 10B pencil-graphite specimens subjected to normal and oblique angle incidence of ions (θ_i = 0°–70°) and considering a fixed ion fluence of . The pristine and irradiated samples were characterized by powder x-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy and Raman spectroscopy studies. Unlike pristine graphite and normal incidence cases, several ripple patterns can be visualized in the atomic force micrographs of the specimens irradiated with an oblique angle incidence. Moreover, apart from conventional G-band located at , a distinct diamond-like carbon (DLC) phase has been witnessed at in the Raman spectra of the graphitic specimens subjected to ion impact and for values of 50° and 70°. The formation of the DLC phase along with surface ripple formation would find numerous scopes while dealing with properties such as surface transport, field emission and mechanically hard coating in miniaturized devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]