Investigations on etching resistance of undoped and boron doped polycrystalline diamond films by oxygen plasma etching

The reactive ion etching (RIE) technique was used to etch the undoped and boron-doped diamond (BDD) polycrystalline films using oxygen plasma. The effect of boron within the BDD coatings on the morphology was investigated. BDD films exhibited much superior etching resistance than the undoped diamond films, wherein the (111) planes of BDD films were more etching resistant than (100) planes due to much higher boron concentration. However, this is in contradiction to undoped diamond films whose (111) planes were etched more quickly. The results would help to better design a particular and efficient etching method for undoped and BDD films to get a well-patterned microstructures. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.