The bias-assisted HF CVD nucleation of diamond: Investigations on the substrate temperature and the filaments location

Effect of Reactor Pressure on Electrical and Structural Properties of Diamond Films Grown by Hot-Filament CVD

“…In addition, the high value of grain density leads to high nucleation, which might lead to nanosized crystals but due to large deposition time µm sized crystals were the result. Also the present nucleation rates are relatively higher than those already noted by other researchers [13][14][15][16][17][18]. Thus it can be concluded that reactor pressure poses large effects on the diamond morphology and grain size.…”

“…However, it was usually applied in the range from several tens to several hundred mbar for HFCVD diamond film growth. This yields diamond nucleation density of 10 7 -10 8 cm −2 [13,14]. Diamond films with high nucleation density of 10 10 -10 11 cm −2 have also been synthesized by Makris et al [15] at 29.5 mbar and by Pecoraro et al [16] at ≈ 15 mbar by applying a negative bias to the substrate.…”

An optical emission spectroscopy study of the plasma generated in the DC HF CVD nucleation of diamond

“…With precovered SiO 2 we neither observe plasma modification throughout the nucleation process nor diamond nucleation, instead of a bare Si(1 0 0) surface where strong modifications occur, as elsewhere reported [11,12]. Therefore, on such samples we got a measurement of the true plasma at the start of the nucleation step.…”

“…Thus, the nucleation step of diamond is finely tuned with a large density, a high homogeneity and reproducibility over an area around 60 mm 2 [11]. From electrical measurements as well as surface studies analysis a nucleation sketch can be inferred that mostly support the so-called subplantation model [12,13]. However, the nucleation process is strongly dependent on the parameters of the gas phase activation: nature, concentration, electronic state (neutral molecular, neutral radical, excited and ionic state, .…”

“…Although the nucleation density has been successfully increased up to 10 8 to 10 10 cm À2 and oriented diamond films could be grown by BEN-CVD, the mechanisms responsible for this highly oriented nucleation are still unknown. In previous papers, we designed a new HFCVD chamber for an intense nucleation and subsequent growth of diamond films on Si(1 0 0) [11,12]. The activation of the gas phase for the BEN step was obtained through a polarization between electrodes separate from the substrate with a couple of two parallel filaments settled in between.…”