Study of the growth of carbon on targets during ion bombardment

The phenomenon of carbon growth on targets irradiated with MeV ions was studied as a function of various parameters: beam intensity, target temperature, nature of the target, nature of the incident ion. It is proposed that the observed phenomenon of carbon growth is due to the dissociation of hydrocarbons of the residual atmosphere, by thermal cracking and by the secondary electrons emitted by the targets. The dissociation is followed by polymerization at the beam spot and partial carbonization.