FABRICATION OF DIAMOND FILMS UNDER HIGH-DENSITY HELIUM PLASMA FORMED BY ELECTRON-CYCLOTRON RESONANCE

Helium gas has been employed instead of hydrogen as the carrier gas to fabricate diamond films using a magneto-active plasma chemical vapour deposition (CVD) system at low pressures. Helium plasma has a much higher plasma density than hydrogen plasma and it has been shown that this promotes fabrication of good quality diamond films at low pressures. Using a gas mixture of methyl alcohol and helium, microcrystalline diamond films with a grain size smaller than 500 angstrom have been fabricated. These microsized diamond films have been investigated by employing X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and features equivalent to those of natural diamond have been obtained.