HIGH-TEMPERATURE CHEMISTRY OF CVD (CHEMICAL-VAPOR-DEPOSITION) DIAMONDGROWTH

Understanding the high temperature chemistry of diamond deposition is the key to turning recently developed CVD techniques for synthesizing diamond coatings into technological applications utilizing its unique combination of properties. This paper reviews the state of our knowled ge for diamond deposition from carbon-hydrogen systems, a knowledge th at has benefited greatly from combustion research over the past severa l decades. Generic kinetic considerations have generated useful limits on and trends in deposition behavior, and proposed mechanisms have pr ovided insights into our thinking about molecular processes which tran sform hydrocarbons into a diamond structure. The type of information a nd research thought to be of most use in furthering our understanding of the high temperature chemistry of diamond deposition is summarized at the end of this paper.