Carbon films were synthesized by pulse-plasma ion-assisted graphite sputtering in the atmosphere of argon-nitrogen mixture. The samples were studied by Raman spectroscopy, electron diffraction and XPS. According to the obtained data, nitrogen efficiently incorporates into the material structure, which leads to the formation of oriented graphite nanoclusters, which fraction reduces with ion assistance energy increase.

The technique of ion-plasma pulse-arc sputtering of graphite in a methane atmosphere has been employed to produce carbon films with different phase composition. Raman spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy showed that increase of methane concentration in the vacuum deposition chamber leads to the growth of fraction containing sp-hybridized chains. In the investigated films structure, resistivity strongly correlates with the content of sp-hybridized carbon.