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In the last decade, the synthesis and characterization of nanometer sized carbon clusters have attracted growing interest within the scientific community. This is due to both scientific interest in the process of diamond nucleation and growth, and to the promising technological applications in nanoelectronics and quantum communications and computing. Our research group has demonstrated that MeV carbon ion implantation in fused silica followed by thermal annealing in the presence of hydrogen leads to the formation of nanocrystalline diamond, with cluster size ranging from 5 to 40 nm. In the present paper, we report the synthesis of carbon nanoclusters by the implantation into fused silica of keV carbon ions using the Plasma Immersion Ion Implantation (PIII) technique, followed by thermal annealing in forming gas (4% 2H in Ar). The present study is aimed at evaluating this implantation technique that has the advantage of allowing high fluence-rates on large substrates. The carbon nanostructures have been characterized with optical absorption and Raman spectroscopies, cross sectional Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), and Parallel Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (PEELS). Nuclear Reaction Analysis (NRA) has been employed to evaluate the deuterium incorporation during the annealing process, as a key mechanism to stabilize the formation of the clusters.
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