A COMBINED MW/ECR-PACVD APPARATUS FOR THE DEPOSITION OF DIAMOND AND OTHER HARD COATINGS

We present an apparatus which is well suited for the chemical vapour deposition (CVD) process of diamond and diamond-like carbon (DLC) thin films as well as other hard coatings. The basic unit of the deposition arrangement is an ASTeX (Applied Science and Technology, Inc.) magnetized microwave (MW) plasma deposition source, which is attached to a newly designed large reactor. Owing to some changes in the substrate heater-holder assembly, the apparatus can be employed as an MW plasma-assisted CVD (PACVD) system in the medium-high pressure region as well as an electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) PACVD system in the low pressure region. First results on diamond deposition in the high pressure MW PACVD regime (p approximate to 50 mbar) and on DLC deposition under ECR PACVD conditions (p approximate to 1 x 10(-3) mbar) with silicon substrates are given. In forthcoming investigations the use of the DLC layers for enhancing diamond nucleation will be checked in detail.