Dg. Kim et al., STRUCTURAL INVESTIGATION OF THE BIAS-ENHANCED NUCLEATION AND GROWTH OF DIAMOND FILMS BY MICROWAVE PLASMA CHEMICAL-VAPOR-DEPOSITION, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, 145(6), 1998, pp. 2095-2100
Citations number
14
Categorie Soggetti
Electrochemistry,"Materials Science, Coatings & Films
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), transmission electron diffract
ion (TED), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and scanning electron micros
copy have been used to investigate the initial nucleation process and
growth behavior of diamond films by microwave plasma chemical vapor de
position. TED examination revealed epitaxial relations between the bet
a-SiC and the Si, and the diamond and the beta-SiC, which depended on
the bias-enhanced nucleation (BEN) time and methane (CH4) concentratio
n. The highly oriented (001) diamond films were obtained after 25 min
BEN for 4% CH4 and 20 min BEN for 8% CH4. TEM revealed the beta-SiC cr
ystallites 2-25 nm across and the diamond crystallites 34-40 nm in siz
e, which depended on the CH, concentration and the BEN time. As the BE
N time increased, the density of the beta-SiC cyrstallites increased f
rom similar to 2.7 x 10(11) to similar to 3.4 x 10(12) cm(2), while th
at of the diamond crystallites varied from similar to 2.0 x 10(9) to s
imilar to 4.0 x 1(01)0 cm(-2). Discrepancy between the densities obtai
ned using TEM and AFM is discussed. It is shown that the heteroepitaxi
ally oriented diamond crystallites are critically important for the gr
owth of the highly (001)-oriented diamond films, although the heteroep
itaxially oriented beta-SiC crystallites could serve as nucleation sit
es for the growth of the diamond films.