Synthesis and structure of nitrogenated tetrahedral amorphous carbon films prepared by nitrogen ion bombardment

► In this paper, ion bombardment technology was used to fabricate ta-C:N film. ► The ta-C films with more than 80% sp3 fraction were deposited by filtered cathode vacuum arc (FCVA) technique, and then the energetic N ion was used to bombard ta-C film to fabricate ta-C:N film. ► The effect of N ion bombarding energy on the structure and surface morphology of ta-C:N film also was studied.