Glassy Polymeric Carbon (GPC) has medical applications owing to its inertness and biocompatible characteristics. Commercial GPC prosthetics include mitral, aortic and hydrocephalic valves. Surface treatment of GPC increases the adhesion of endothelic tissue on GPC and avoids the occurrence of thrombus in cardiac implant. In this work, ion beam was used to improve the mechanical characteristics of GPC surface. Hardness was measured as a function of depth in precursor and GPC samples heat treated from 300 to 2500 °C before and after bombardment with energetic ions of silicon, carbon, oxygen and gold at energies of 5, 6, 8 and 10 MeV and fluences between 1.0×1013and 1.0×1016ions/cm2. Comparison shows that hardness increases of the bombarded samples depend on heat treatment temperature. We verify that ion bombardment promotes carbonization due to an increased linkage between the chains of the polymeric material in lateral groups that are more numerous for samples heat treated to 700 °C. © 2003 American Institute of Physics