Growth of (100) oriented diamond grains by the application of lateral temperature gradients across silicon substrates
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D.S. Misra, Manoj. K. Singh, Pawan. K. Tyagi, and Abha Misra Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay 400076, India
F. Le Normand Groupe Surfaces and Interfaces, IPCMS, UMR7504 CNRS, Strasbourg, France
J. Gracio and N. Ali Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal (Received 21 January 2004; accepted 9 July 2004)
Polycrystalline diamond films with a predominant (100) texture were deposited onto silicon substrates using hot-filament chemical vapor deposition. During film deposition, different temperature gradients were created and imposed laterally across the substrate materials. Films grown under a gradient of 100 °C cm−1 displayed large (100) oriented grains. No crystallite (100) orientation was observed in the as-grown films prepared without a temperature gradient. It was observed that the diamond grain size varied as a function of the gradient. The lower gradient resulted in smaller grains and vice versa. Furthermore, the size of the grains was a function of the deposition time. The orientation of the diamond grains changed gradually across the substrate from (100) to (110) orientation as we scanned from the high-temperature to the low-temperature zone. The films were characterized using x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. XRD showed strong (400) reflections in the oriented samples. SEM results indicated the presence of smooth diamond surfaces consisting of predominantly (100) oriented platelets. As the (100) oriented diamond grains were grown on top of the (100) oriented silicon substrates, the faces were mostly aligned parallel to the substrate surface resulting in the deposition of a smooth diamond surface. AFM observations revealed the presence of steps located at the boundaries of the oriented grains. FTIR results showed the characteristic difference in hydrogen bonding in the oriented samples and gave useful information about mechanisms responsible for the orientation. Quantitative analysis was carried out to measure the H content in the films, and it was found that the oriented films contained less hydrogen. Our findings suggest that high saturation of carbon and a concentration gradient of sp3 CH2 species can be the key factor in the oriented growth of (100) diamond grains.
I. INTRODUCTION
Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is an excellent thinfilm deposition technology, which can be used to deposit good quality, highly (100) oriented diamond films onto non-diamond substrates. The low defect densities and smooth surface profiles make (100) textured diamond films more attractive for optical and electronic applications. Despite the significant progress made on the
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Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: [email protected] DOI: 10.1557/JMR.2004.0433 3206
http://journals.cambridge.org
J. Mater. Res., Vol. 19, No. 11, Nov 2004 Downloaded: 08 Apr 2015
technological aspects of diamond nucleation and growth, the detailed mecha
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