Characteristics of deposited boron doping diamond on tungsten carbide insert by MPECVD

Diamond-coated cutting tools are used primarily for machining non-ferrous materials such as aluminum–silicon alloys, copper alloys, fiber-reinforced polymers, green ceramics and graphite. Because the tool life of cemented carbide cutting tool is greatly improved by diamond coating, and typically more than 10 times of the tool life is obtained. However, research of boron-doped diamond (BDD) coating tool has not been fully researched yet. In this study, we have succeeded to make boron-doped microcrystalline and nanocrystalline diamond-coated Co-cemented tungsten carbide (WC–Co) inserts. Microcrystalline BDD thin film is deposited on WC–Co insert by using microwave plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (MPECVD) method. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and Raman spectroscopy are used to characterize the as-deposited diamond films.1,2