Properties of physical vapor deposited diamondlike carbon (DLC) films and the migration of hydrogen inH+and4He+ion implanted and hydrogen co-deposited DLC films have been studied. Measurements utilizing Rutherford backscattering spectrometry showed that the films studied have an average mass density of 2.6±0.1g/cm3. The bonding ratiosp3/sp2is typically 70&percent; measured with the electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis technique. Impurities and their depth distributions were deduced from the particle induced x-ray emission and secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) measurements. Distributions of implanted and co-deposited hydrogen were measured by the nuclear resonance reaction1H(15N,&agr;&ggr;)12Cand SIMS. It was found that annealing behavior of implanted H in DLC has a diffusion like character. The obtained diffusion coefficients resulted in the activation energy of 2.0±0.1 eV. It was observed that in H co-deposited DLC films the temperature of H release varied between 950 and 1070 °C depending on the H concentration. ©1997 American Institute of Physics.