Amorphous carbon films were prepared by the ion beam deposition of methane saturated with silicon pump oil 704. The concentration of Si in the ion deposited coatings could be varied by the temperature of silicon oil bath where saturated vapor was produced. In the process, the vapor ionized at 800 V was accelerated and impinged on glass or stainless steel substrates at ion densities between 0.3–1.5 mA/cm2 for a period of less than 60 minutes. The resulting films were characterized by x-ray photoelectron and Raman spectroscopies. The elemental components of these films include carbon, oxygen and silicon with varying amounts of nitrogen, iron and tungsten contaminations. The microstructure mainly consists of tiny graphitic carbon with sp2 ordered and disordered configurations, numerous carbon-oxygen and carbon-silicon linkages. This simple unique process yields a homogeneous thin coating suitable for many tribological applications.