Growth of highly-oriented diamond films on 6H–SiC (0001) and Si (111) substrates and the effect of carburization

Abstract The growth of highly oriented diamond is performed on Si (111) and 6H–SiC (0001) substrates via two-step and three-step processes using microwave plasma CVD. The two-step process involves bias-enhanced nucleation (BEN) and deposition, and the three-step process involves carburization in addition to the two-step process. The diamond films grown on the Si (111) substrate exhibit high quality and desirable (111)-orientation under the carburization condition of 5.3×10 3 Pa in pressure with no bias applied. The mechanism for the formation of conversion layer during the carburization step is investigated on both the substrates through the Raman and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) studies. The results indicate that the carburization mainly composed of β-SiC, which plays a crucial role for the formation of the conversion layer and which eventually promotes the diamond nucleation. It is also suggested that a highly-oriented and high-quality diamond film can be successfully achieved by carburization.