ANALYSES OF DIAMOND NUCLEATION PROCESSES ON CARBONIZED SUBSTRATES

The formation of carbonized interface layers is a spontaneous stage in the nucleation process of the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) of diam ond onto substrates, however, the relationship between the carbonizati on and nucleation stages has not been well understood to date. This pa per will discuss diamond nucleation mechanisms in relation to the carb onization of silicon substrates. For this purpose the silicon substrat es are first carbonized using direct resistive heating. Then, diamonds are deposited on the substrates using a hot-filament CVD (HF-CVD) met hod. The experimental results reveal that when no ion effects exist, t he solid-phase carbon reaches the same thermal equilibrium state as in the gas-phase during diamond deposition, and that the formation of th e carbonized interface layers has no immediate relationship to diamond nucleation.