Elsevier

Diamond and Related Materials

Volume 5, Issue 12, December 1996, Pages 1503-1508
Diamond and Related Materials

On the pressure limits of diamond chemical vapor deposition

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0925-9635(96)00574-2Get rights and content

Abstract

A detailed examination of proposed diamond growth mechanisms was performed. Within the framework of existing models, a simple argument is presented to explain the experimentally observed limits to diamond growth by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) at pressures below 1 Torr. Based on data from a variety of conventional CVD reactors it is suggested that the CVD of diamond is not possible in systems where the partial pressure of atomic hydrogen is less than 20 mTorr. The addition of oxygen appears to depress the pressure limit by a factor of 10, which is attributed to the presence of hydroxyl radicals that remain active at lower growth temperatures.

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    Present address: NRC/ARO Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7919, USA.

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