Chlorine and nitrogen doped carbon has been grown by chemical vapor deposition of tetrachloroethylene and nitrogen. The film is predominantly carbon (90 at.%) in an amorphous state, but does contain some chlorine terminated carbon nitride aromatic rings, as determined by 13C NMR. The small amount of chlorine present in the material is inadequate to terminate most of the dangling bonds, leading to a large absorption below the optical band gap, but large enough to significantly increase the optical band gap. And the infrared absorption is dominated by an intense line at 1270 cm−1, which is interpreted as due to the amorphous carbon network.