Evaluation of disorder and determination of mass density of ion-modified thin carbon films by XPS

In this work, thin carbon films were deposited on the surface of armco-iron using magnetron sputtering of a carbon target in an Ar+ working gas environment. Then the carbon films were implanted with argon and nitrogen ions. In order to clarify the content of differently hybridized (i. e., in different chemical states) carbon atoms in the deposited material, the method of analyzing the photoelectron energy loss spectra was used in this work. It is shown that the satellite structure of c1s spectra, when analyzed jointly with xps of the c1s core level, confirms the formation of a disordered structure of the carbon film and allows one to determine the mass density of thin carbon films.