X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) and valence-band photoelectron spectroscopy (PES) were used to investigate the electronic and bonding structures of B-C-N thin films. The intensities of the sp2-bonded features in the C K-edge XANES spectra are found to generally decrease as the C concentration increases, whereas the intensities of the sp2-bonded features in the spectra of N K-edge XANES increase with the N concentration. The decrease of the intensities of the sp2-bonded features in the C and N K-edges XANES spectra correlates with the increase of the C/B and N/B concentration ratios and the increase of Young’s modulus. Valence-band PES spectra are found to be insensitive to the variations of the B and C concentrations in B-C-N compounds.
