Optical Emission Spectrum (OES) was utilized to monitor the deposition procedure of copper film byradio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering.The plasma was found to contain Ar, Ar+, Cu and Cu+ when Argon was the working gas. The OES intensity of each composition increased with the increase of the input power of sputtering. Furthermore, intensity of Cu was higher than that ofAr, Ar+ and Cu+. The mechanical property of as-deposited Cu film was measured by scratch test method. It was found that with the increase of the input power, the adhesion strength possessed the maximum value while the square resistance decreased and surface roughness obviously. Theory calculation shows these properties were connected to kinetic energy of atoms in the plasma.

Ar\H2\CH4 gas mixture was utilized to grow nanocrystal diamond films in a RF plasma enhanced CVD system. CH4\ H2 ratios were changed to study the effect of plasma radicals on the deposit, in which optical emission spectroscopy (OES) was applied to analyze the plasma radicals. It was found that Hα, Hβ, Hγ, CH, C2 were the main radicals in the plasma. Among them, the CH intensity of OES was usually quite strong and increased sharply when the ratio of CH4/H2 was greater than 3%. The intensity of C2 was weak and basically unchanged with the addition of methane. This study can provide a new possible technical application for depositing NCD films.

Arcjet plasma enhanced CVD was used to grow diamond. Nucleation of diamond was studied at the early stage of growth cause. The micro-structural probes (transmission electron microscope (TEM), high resolution electronic microscope (HREM), selected area diffraction (SAD) and electron energy loss spectra (EELS) were used to characterize the nuclei. It was found that nuclei formed following the amorphous carbon formation. The critical nucleus size was deduced to be less than 20 nm. The growth of nucleus would form the network-like structure. The incubation period of nucleation was deduced as 6–8min under the condition of high concentration of CH4 in H2.