Fabrication of smooth diamond films on SiO2 by the addition of nitrogen to the gas feed in hot-filament chemical vapor deposition

Abstract

Diamond films of small roughness have been deposited onto thermally oxidized Si substrates by a process of anisotropic crystalline growth induced by nitrogen in a hot-filament chemical vapor deposition reactor. Ethanol (C2H5OH), diluted in hydrogen and nitrogen, was used as the source of carbon. At high concentrations, nitrogen tends to suppress the diamond growth in the 〈100〉 direction, which allows the growth of square mesoscopic-like crystals (“plates”) of large area in the directions parallel to the surface of the substrate. These plates stack upon each other, forming a thick diamond coating of uniform thickness. Analysis of the films made by micro-Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy revealed that it is possible to obtain diamond coatings of high quality with a roughness comparable to that of the SiO2 at the diamond/SiO2 interface, and of nanometric roughness on the surface of the plates. A model to explain the morphology of the plates based on the microscopic mechanisms that involve the possible passivation of the (100) plane and an increase of vacancies by nitrogen is also discussed.