The effect of cooling rate on impact damage performance of carbon fibre/polyether ether ketone (PEEK) matrix composite is characterised based on the instrumented drop-weight impact test, scanning acoustic microscopy (SAM) damage evaluation and compression-after-impact (CAI) test. Judging from the incipient impact load, incipient impact energy and total damage area, the ability to resist damage initiation upon impact was higher in the order of fast-cooled carbon/PEEK, slow-cooled carbon/PEEK and carbon/epoxy laminates. Furthermore, the threshold impact energy was higher and the CAI strength reduction rate was lower for the fast-cooled specimen than the slow-cooled counterpart, strongly indicating higher impact damage tolerance of the former system. The present study demonstrates that the impact damage performance and other important properties of carbon/PEEK composites can be optimised, if not maximised, by proper control of processing conditions, especially the cooling rate. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.