High-rate deposition of high-quality, thick cubic boron nitride films by bias-assisted DC jet plasma chemical vapor deposition

Cubic boron nitride thin films were deposited on (100) silicon substrates by DC jet plasma chemical vapor deposition in an Ar-N2-BF3-H2 gas system. Negative DC bias was applied on the substrate during deposition. Scanning electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction, infrared and Raman spectroscopy were carried out to characterize the samples. It was found that boron nitride films with cubic phase over 90% were synthesized under optimized conditions. A high deposition rate of about 0.3 μm/min and a film thickness over 3 μm were firstly achieved. Furthermore, the Raman measurements show clear TO and LO characteristic peaks of c-BN with a full width at half maximum of 28.8 and 19.7 cm-1, revealing a high quality of the deposited films.