A novel kind of hydrogen-free CeO2 doped diamond-like carbon (DLC) films with thickness of 180 200 nm were deposited on silicon by unbalanced magnetron sputtering. Reduced reflectance and increased lifetime are expected with respect to pure DLC films, making these coatings good candidates as optical protective coatings for IR windows and solar cells. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirms that CeO2 is formed within the DLC films. Auger electron spectroscopy exhibits that the C, O, and Ce elements distribute uniformly across the film thickness, and C element diffuses into the Si substrate at the interface between the substrate and film. AFM shows that nanoparticles with diameter of around 50 nm are formed on the surface of deposited films, whose surface roughness is in the range of 1.3-2.3 nm. Raman spectra show the CeO2 doped DLC films are amorphous DLC films, and both the G frequency and relative intensity ratio I-D/I-G are higher than those of pure DLC films. The photoluminescence of CeO2 doped DLC films is obviously more intense than that of a pure DLC film, which indicates a promising potential as optical protective films for solar cells and IR window. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.