Theoretical analysis of ion bombardment roles in the bias-enhanced nucleation process of CVD diamond

The bias-enhanced nucleation approach has been proven to be important for i ncreasing the nucleation density and achieving heteroepitaxial growth of CV D diamond. It has also been shown that ion bombardment plays an important r ole during the nucleation process. However, the mechanism is still poorly u nderstood to date. In this work, the bias-enhanced nucleation process of di amond in hot filament chemical vapor deposition has been theoretically inve stigated. The relationship between the active ion number and the electrical field before and after glow discharge has been formulated. The roles and e ffects of ion bombardment in the process of diamond nucleation have been an alyzed and discussed in detail. The results are compared with the experimen t results. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.