The selective area deposition of diamond films

Abstract

Diamond films were selectively nucleated and grown on single crystal (100) silicon by microwave plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition with submicron spatial resolution. A thermal silicon dioxide layer on the wafers was patterned by standard photolithography. Nucleation was performed by applying a dc bias of 2250 to 2350 V in a hydrogen-methane plasma. Lifting off the oxide layer by HF etching prior to growth delineated the nucleation pattern which was replicated by the diamond film after growth. The growth of polycrystalline diamond was performed in a hydrogen-carbon monoxide-methane mixture selected to facilitate (100) texturing. Individual faceted crystallites were grown on a square matrix of sites, with a pitch of 3 mm, by controlling the nucleation densities within the windows exposing the prenucleated silicon. However, the orientation of the crystallites was randomly aligned with respect to the (100) silicon lattice within the micron scale windows employed in this study.3128

Charged clusters in thin film growth

“…Based on this, the technique of selective deposition has been extensively used in microelectronics. 63,[73][74][75][76] In spite of the technological importance of this phenomenon, its underlying principle is not yet clearly understood. Selective deposition can be best understood by considering that charged clusters are the major deposition flux for growth of thin films.…”

New insights into selected-area deposition of diamond films by means of selective seeding

“…Since Hirabayashi and Taniguchi reported the selective deposition of polycrystalline and single-crystal diamonds for the first time in 1988 [1], many methods for SAD of diamond have been proposed [2][3][4]. A new SAD method has been presented by us [5,6].…”