Plasma Etching Chemistry for Smoothening of Ultrananocrystalline Diamond Films

A new process to controllably smoothen ultrananocrystalline diamond films using H2/O2 plasma is presented. Diamond films were exposed to oxygen, hydrogen and hydrogen/oxygen mixture (19:1) plasmas. Evolution of morphology and thickness were monitored ex-situ using scanning electron microscopy (SEM)...

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Published inECS solid state letters Vol. 4; no. 10; pp. P80 - P84
Main Authors Jaramillo-Cabanzo, Daniel F., Willing, Gerold A., Sunkara, Mahendra K.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published The Electrochemical Society 19.08.2015
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Summary:A new process to controllably smoothen ultrananocrystalline diamond films using H2/O2 plasma is presented. Diamond films were exposed to oxygen, hydrogen and hydrogen/oxygen mixture (19:1) plasmas. Evolution of morphology and thickness were monitored ex-situ using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) while roughness was measured using atomic force microscopy (AFM). Neither pure oxygen nor pure hydrogen plasmas were found suitable for smoothening the films. The H2/O2 mixture plasma exposure resulted in a constant roughness decrement of 0.043 nm/min with a slow etching rate (0.07 μm/h) allowing for the control of the final film roughness without sacrificing too much of the material thickness.
Bibliography:0081510SSL
ISSN:2162-8742
2162-8750
DOI:10.1149/2.0081510ssl