Structural, optical and mechanical properties of nanostructure diamond synthesized by chemical vapor deposition

Nanostructure diamond (NSD) films on Si substrate are prepared by microwave plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (MPECVD) using methane and hydrogen as the reactants with two-step negative substrate bias (SB). The dependencies of the NSD film morphology, grains, surface roughness, crystal and bonding structures and hardness on the negative SB at the bias-enhanced growth (BEG) step and substrate temperature during growth have been investigated by conducting atomic force microscopy (CAFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy and nanoindentation. The hardness of the NSD film is found to be as high as 80 GPa with CAFM average and root mean square roughness of 7 and 9 nm, respectively, under optimal negative SB at the BEG step. From the studies of substrate temperature effect, the hardness of the NSD film is as high as 70 GPa, with average and root mean square CAFM roughness of 9 and 11 nm, respectively, which were obtained at a substrate temperature of 500 °C. In both cases, the film hardness was found to be affected by the size of clusters, which are composed of many small NSD particles, the amount of NSD in an amorphous matrix as well as surface roughness. We also synthesized transparent NSD films by MPECVD under optimized single-step growth conditions on quartz substrates, which are scratched with several micrometers diamond powder. A hardness as high as 60 GPa and a maximum transmittance of 60% in the visible light region are achieved for an NSD coating of 1.0 μm thickness with small surface roughness.