Growth, microstructure, and field-emission properties of synthesized diamond film on adamantane-coated silicon substrate by microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition

Journal Article · Sat May 15 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · Journal of Applied Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3427436· OSTI ID:21476236

Tiwari, Rajanish N; Li, Chang ^[1]

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1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan 300 (China)

Diamond nucleation on unscratched Si surface is great importance for its growth, and detailed understanding of this process is therefore desired for many applications. The pretreatment of the substrate surface may influence the initial growth period. In this study, diamond films have been synthesized on adamantane-coated crystalline silicon {l_brace}100{r_brace} substrate by microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition from a gaseous mixture of methane and hydrogen gases without the application of a bias voltage to the substrates. Prior to adamantane coating, the Si substrates were not pretreated such as abraded/scratched. The substrate temperature was {approx}530 deg. C during diamond deposition. The deposited films are characterized by scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectrometry, x-ray diffraction, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. These measurements provide definitive evidence for high-crystalline quality diamond film, which is synthesized on a SiC rather than clean Si substrate. Characterization through atomic force microscope allows establishing fine quality criteria of the film according to the grain size of nanodiamond along with SiC. The diamond films exhibit a low-threshold (55 V/{mu}m) and high current-density (1.6 mA/cm{sup 2}) field-emission (FE) display. The possible mechanism of formation of diamond films and their FE properties have been demonstrated.

• OSTI ID: 21476236
• Journal Information: Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 107, Issue 10; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3427436; (c) 2010 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0021-8979
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPY
CHEMICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION
COATINGS
CURRENT DENSITY
CYCLOALKANES
DIAMONDS
FIELD EMISSION
GRAIN SIZE
MICROWAVE RADIATION
NUCLEATION
PLASMA
RAMAN SPECTRA
RAMAN SPECTROSCOPY
SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPY
SILICON
SILICON CARBIDES
SUBSTRATES
THIN FILMS
X-RAY DIFFRACTION
X-RAY PHOTOELECTRON SPECTROSCOPY
ALKANES
CARBIDES
CARBON
CARBON COMPOUNDS
CHEMICAL COATING
COHERENT SCATTERING
DEPOSITION
DIFFRACTION
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ELECTRON MICROSCOPY
ELECTRON SPECTROSCOPY
ELEMENTS
EMISSION
FILMS
HYDROCARBONS
LASER SPECTROSCOPY
MICROSCOPY
MICROSTRUCTURE
MINERALS
NONMETALS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
PHOTOELECTRON SPECTROSCOPY
RADIATIONS
SCATTERING
SEMIMETALS
SILICON COMPOUNDS
SIZE
SPECTRA
SPECTROSCOPY
SURFACE COATING