Influence of discharge current on hot cathode plasma chemical vapor deposition of diamond films

Hot cathode glow discharge plasma chemical vapor deposition is a new method to deposit high-quality diamond films with high deposition rate.Compared with the conventional cold cathode glow discharge,the hot cathode glow discharge is a new type of gas discharge.It has many new characters,one of which is that the discharge current is quite high — about 6.0-10.0 A.The great discharge current has an important influence on the deposition of diamond films.The influence of discharge current on the deposition rate,surface morphology and thermal conductivity of diamond films is discussed.The experimental results show that the discharge current has critical influence on the deposition rate and quality of diamond films due to its influence on the plasma region and anode region of the discharge plasma.Especially,the increase of the discharge current can increase the film quality effectively,which is quite significant to the production of highquality diamond films.