To reduce the stress of tetrahedral amorphous carbon (ta-C) films and improve the adhesion, a graded multilayer film was deposited using a filter cathodic vacuum arc (FCVA) deposition system. Nanoindentation measurement revealed the high hardness and Young's modulus of the multilayer films. Nanoscratch test was used to estimate the scratching resistance of the multilayer films on Si substrate. The high critical scratch load implied the good cohesive and adhesive strengths of the graded multilayer films. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.