Abstract: Hydrogenated amorphous carbon films were fabricated by using layer-by-layer deposi-tion method and hydrogen dilution method in a small d.c.-assisted plasma enhancedchemical vapor deposition system. It was found that the hydrogen plasma treatmentcould change the sp2/sp3 ratio to some extent by chemical etching. The improvementsof field emission characteristics were observed compared with that from conventionallydeposited a-C films, which can be attributed to the large field enhancement effect dueto the inhomogeneous distribution of nanometer scale sp2 clusters and the reductionof the surface emission barrier due to the hydrogen termination.

Key words: field emission, amorphous carbon, hydrogen plasma treatment