Nucleation, growth and characterization of nanocrystalline diamond films

The growth of nanocrystalline diamond films has been obtained by microwave plasmas fed with CH4/Ar/H-2 mixtures. This study seeks to provide an insight on the effects of diamond powder size used for ultrasonical abrasion of silicon substrates, varied from 0.125 to 45 mu m, on nucleation density, growth rate and quality of the films. It has been found that large diamond powder size strongly enhances the nucleation density and reduces the surface roughness of thin and thick films. The effect of diamond powder size is negligible on the growth rate and the bulk properties of the films such as structure, crystallinity and phase composition. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.