Abstract: A method and apparatus is provided which produces a layer of material on a substrate by extracting ions from a laser ablation plume in a vacuum environment. In a basic embodiment, the apparatus includes a vacuum chamber containing a target material and a laser focused on the target to ablate the material and ionize a portion of the ablation plume. An accelerating grid within the vacuum chamber is charged to extract the ions from the plume and direct the ions onto a substrate to grow the layer. The basic embodiment has produced diamond-like carbon films on a clean, unseeded silicon substrate at deposition rates approaching 20 microns per hour. The diamond-like carbon films produced were of exceptional quality: uniform thickness with a surface roughness about 1 Angstrom; uniform index of refraction within the range of 1.5-2.5; resistivity greater than 40 megs ohms per centimeter; and a hard surface resistant to physical abuse.