2004/08/10 by J. R. Rabeau, Y. Fan, P. John +2
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Analytical Chemistry (journal) #Boron and Carbon Nanomaterials Research #Chemical vapor deposition #Diamond #Diamond and Carbon-based Materials Research #Graphene research and applications #Microwave #Nanocrystalline material #Plasma #Raman spectroscopy #Spectroscopy #Synthetic diamond #Wide-bandgap semiconductor #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1063/1.1810637
published as Journal of Applied Physics 96(11) 6734 (2004) · 39 pages, 11 figures
arxiv created 2004/08/10 · openalex publication_date 2004/11/22 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
This paper presents findings from a study of nanocrystalline diamond (NCD) growth in a microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition reactor. NCD films were grown using Ar∕H2∕CH4 and He∕H2∕CH4 gas compositions. The resulting films were characterized using Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy. Analysis revealed an estimated grain size of the order of 50nm, growth rates in the range 0.01–0.3μm∕h, and sp3- and sp2-bonded carbon content consistent with that expected for NCD. The C2 Swan band (dΠg3↔aΠu3) was probed using cavity ring-down spectroscopy to measure the absolute C2(a) number density in the plasma during diamond film growth. The number density in the Ar∕H2∕CH4 plasmas was in the range from 2to4×1012cm−3, but found to be present in quantities too low to measure in the He∕H2∕CH4 plasmas. Optical emission spectrometry was employed to determine the relative densities of the C2 excited state (d) in the plasma. The fact that similar NCD material was grown whether using Ar or He as the carrier gas suggests that C2 does not play a major role in the growth of nanocrystalline diamond.