Investigations of thin hydrogenated amorphous carbon films using electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS)

Transmission EELS measurements have been carried out on a-C:H films deposited by ion plating from acetone or n-hexane plasma using various substrate potentials. The calculated dielectric functions show low optical absorption in the range of 4 eV to 8 eV. The amount of sp³ hybridizised C atoms has been estimated by integration over the * and * band ranges in the core loss spectra.