Surface transformation of graphite or diamond following Highly Charged Ion irradiation

Highly Charged Ions (HCI) approaching surfaces at nm distances are known to extract a very large number of electrons from the target. Over dielectric surfaces, the positive holes left following the removal of the electrons cannot be immediately neutralized, thereby locally inducing a huge stress and creating permanent surface modifications on very small dots. We present in this paper experiments on the structural transformations induced by irradiation with HCI of graphite and diamond surfaces characterized using the Atomic Clock Property of the Hollow Atoms (ACPHA) technique.