Diamond deposition and plasma diagnostics in a 27 MHz inductive coupled reactor (ICP)

An inductive coupled planar radio frequency (rf) reactor (ICP) with separately mounted concentric coils was used to deposit diamond films onto silicon and boron nitride. A grounded Faraday polarizer was mounted on top of the reactor below the rf-coil to prevent capacitive coupling. The electrically heated substrates were immersed in the most intense plasma region shaped like a torus. Mainly two different argon-hydrogen-methane mixtures were used, namely Ar/H-2/CH4-250/25/0.5 seem (mixture #I) and Ar/H-2/CH4-50/50/0.5 seem (mixture #II). With the conditions of mixture #I, deposition of good quality diamond with relatively high growth rates (0.6-1 mu m h(-1)) has been obtained. During diamond growth the plasma was investigated by means of a Langmuir probe system (LP), providing radial distributions of several plasma parameters. The energy distributions of the most often occurring ions were analysed by an energy and mass spectrometer (EMS). Correlations between the measured parameters and the grown coatings will be given. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.