Abstract: We reported a significant reduction of stress in diamond like carbon(DLC) coatings,especially at the interface,deposited by RF magnetron sputtering on substrate of double-side polished Si(100) wafer.The influence of the RF sputtering power,glancing angle and argon flow-rate on the stress distribution was investigated with atomic force microscopy and Raman spectroscopy.The results show that the stress in DLC coatings can be considerably significantly reduced under the optimized synthesis conditions.To be specific,Formation of defects,including the vacancies,interstitial atoms/impurities originated from bombardment of high-energy ions,increased the stress because of the increased volume/non-uniform distribution of sp³ and decreased compactness.An optimized ion-energy makes the difference.Deposited at a RF sputtering power of 350 W,an argon flow-rate of 60 mL/min,and a glancing angle of 90°,the minimum stress in DLC-coating was found to be 0.85 GPa.