Highly oriented pyrolytic graphite was irradiated with swift heavy ions (Ne, Cr, Fe, Ni, Zn, Xe and U) of fluences
between 1011 and 1014 ions/cm2 in energy range MeV–GeV. The combination of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM)and Raman spectroscopy studies shows that large numbers of tracks protrude from the surface. The disordered crystal lattice is leading to a Raman-active D mode. Quantitative analysis of the peak intensity indicates that the size of the crystallite domain is larger than the mean distance between in-plane tracks observed by STM.