Selective etching of sp carbon in a diamond-like carbon film by hyperthermal atomic oxygen exposures

Tagawa, Masahito*; Yokota, Kumiko*; Kitamura, Akira*; Matsumoto, Koji*; Yoshigoe, Akitaka ; Teraoka, Yuden; Kanda, Kazuhiro*; Niibe, Masahito*

In this study, the change of sp/sp ratio in a hydrogenated diamond-like carbon irradiated by hyperthermal atomic oxygen beams has been investigated by a near edge X-ray absorption fine structure method. The near edge X-ray absorption fine structure measurements, Rutherford back scattering measurements, and photoemission spectroscopic measurements were performed at the BL9 of NewSUBARU synchrotron facility, Kobe University, and BL23SU of SPring-8 facilities, respectively. It was found that the sp component, which was characteristic to a grafite structure, was selectively etched off by hyperthermal atomic oxygen beams with 2 eV. This result is consistent with previously obtained information of a larger erosion rate of grafite in the space environment than diamond.