CARBURIZATION AND BIAS EFFECTS ON TEXTURED (100)-DIAMOND THIN-FILMS BY MICROWAVE PLASMA-ENHANCED CHEMICAL-VAPOR-DEPOSITION

In this paper, we report the successful growth of textured (100) diamond films which can be as thin as 4 mu m. The just-emerged transitional layer is found to be only about 1.5 mu m thick which is very thin compared with the computer simulation value of 700d(0), where d(0) is the average distance between the nuclei. The effects of various parameters in the carburization and bias steps such as substrate temperature, methane concentration, DC bias voltage and time, etc. on the growth of textured (100) diamond films have been systematically investigated. Experimental results show that the carburization step and the bias process seem necessary to facilitate the growth of textured (100) diamond films. However, these parameters may strongly affect the growth of oriented (100) diamond films, and therefore should be optimized for a set of growth conditions. It is suggested that varying these parameters in the pre-growth steps may cause the change of microstructure, alignment of nuclei, and defect states in the diamond-like layer, resulting in the morphological change of textured (100) diamond films.