Effect of Gas Sources on the Deposition of Nano-Crystalline Diamond Films Prepared by Microwave Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition

Nano-crystalline diamond (NCD) films were deposited on silicon substrates by a microwave plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (MPCVD) reactor in C2H5OH/H2 and CH4/H2/O2 systems, respectively, with a constant ratio of carbon/hydrogen/oxygen. By means of atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), it was shown that the NCD films deposited in the C2H5OH/H2 system possesses more uniform surface than that deposited in the CH4/H2/O2 system. Results from micro-Raman spectroscopy revealed that the quality of the NCD films was different even though the plasmas in the two systems contain exactly the same proportion of elements. In order to explain this phenomenon, the bond energy of forming OH groups, energy distraction in plasma and the deposition process of NCD films were studied. The experimental results and discussion indicate that for a same ratio of carbon/hydrogen/oxygen, the C2H5OH/H2 plasma was beneficial to deposit high quality NCD films with smaller average grain size and lower surface roughness.