Nanocrystalline diamond films from argon microwave plasmas: Phase purity, microstructure, growth mechanism, and applications

Conference · Wed Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1997

OSTI ID:537354

Gruen, D M; Krauss, A R; Zhou, D; McCauley, T G; Corrigan, T D ^[1]; Chang, R P.H. ^[2]; Swain, G M ^[3]

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1. Argonne National Lab., IL (United States)
2. Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States). Materials Research Center
3. Utah State Univ., Logan, UT (United States). Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Nanocrystalline diamond films grown from microwave plasmas of argon containing 1% carbon (C{sub 60}, C{sub 2}H{sub 2}, CH{sub 4}) but no added hydrogen have been characterized by carbon 1s photoabsorption, as well as by UV-excited Raman spectroscopy. Additional evidence for diamond phase purity comes from x-ray and electron diffraction and from electron energy loss spectroscopy. The microstructure (15 nm average grain size and comparable rms surface roughness) has been determined by SEM, atomic resolution TEM, and AFM microscopy. A mechanism based on density functional calculations with carbon dimer, C{sub 2}, as a nucleation and growth species is discussed. The transition from C{sub 2} to CH{sub 3} radical as a growth species was followed by measuring surface roughness as a function of hydrogen additions to the argon mixtures. Tribological, electrochemical and field emission properties of these smooth nonporous films are presented.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab., IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Research, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-31109-ENG-38
• OSTI ID: 537354
• Report Number(s): ANL/CHM/CP--91799; CONF-970873--1; ON: DE97008382
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CHEMICAL VAPOR DEPOSITION
DIAMONDS
ELECTROCHEMISTRY
FIELD EMISSION
FRICTION
MICROSTRUCTURE
PHASE STUDIES
PLASMA DIAGNOSTICS
SURFACE PROPERTIES
USES
WEAR RESISTANCE