Preparation and characterization of wide area, high quality diamond film using magnetoactive plasma chemical vapour deposition

Abstract A magnetomicrowave plasma was used for the low pressure deposition of diamond. The important point in the plasma deposition system is to set the electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) condition (875 G in the case of a 2.45 GHz microwave) at the deposition area. The high density plasma (above 1 × 10 11 cm -3 ) necessary for high quality diamond formation was obtained by effective microwave absorption near the magnetic field, satisfying the ECR condition. The plasma is uniform at the discharge area (160 mm in diameter) and uniform diamond films of a high quality are obtained. From an investigation of diamond formation in the range 10 -2 –50 Torr in the same deposition system, it is obvious that the lower pressure reduces the formation temperature of diamond to 500 °C and that the effective species for diamond formation are low energy radicals.