Influence of current modulation waveform on polycrystalline diamond film deposition using modulated induction thermal plasmas-- Numerical and experimental studies --

Abstract
In this paper, influence of amplitude-modulated coil current waveform on polycrystalline diamond deposition was studied using modulated induction thermal plasma (M-ITP) from numerical and experimental approaches. The M-ITP is useful to make nucleation of diamond particles necessary in the first stage of diamond film deposition. First, numerical thermo-fluid calculation was conducted for Ar M-ITP with CH4/H2 feedstock gas to investigate the influence of modulation waveform on particle fluxes of different hydrocarbon species onto a Si substrate. Furthermore, experiments were performed to fabricate polycrystalline diamond film deposition using M-ITP with different modulation waveforms. The modulation waveform for coil current was set to a rectangle waveform, a saw-tooth waveform and a reverse saw-tooth waveform in the calculation and the experiments. The experimental results showed that saw-tooth M-ITP provided a higher deposition rate of 2.05 μm/h than other waveforms. This would be attributed to higher fluxes of neutral hydrocarbons in the saw-tooth M-ITP according to the calculation results.

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