In this study, the amorphous carbon thin films were deposited by ion beam sputtering deposition method on the glass and Ni–Cu alloy substrates. The structural evolution of amorphous carbon and its correlation with the kinetic energy of carbon atoms during the growth of thin film was investigated. The effect of substrate material, deposition temperature, and ion beam energy on the structural changes were examined. Raman spectroscopy indicated a structural transition from amorphous carbon to diamond-like amorphous carbon (DLC) due to an increase in deposition temperature up to 100 C and ion beam energy from 2 keV to 5 keV. The size of graphite crystallites with sp 2 bonds (L a) were smaller than 1 nm in the amorphous carbon layers deposited on Ni-Cu alloy. The results of residual stress calculation using X-ray diffractometer (XRD) analysis revealed a decreasing trend in the tensile residual stress values of the amorphous carbon thin films with increasing the ion beam energy.