Independent control of ion energy and flux in plasma-enhanced diamond growth

Abstract

Ion energy and flux incident upon a positively biased substrate in an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) have been analyzed during diamond growth at a pressure of 20 mTorr. An electrically floated characteristic of the ICP source allowed a shift up of the plasma potential by the biasing. For the substrate bias (Vb) above 20 V, the ion energy remained constant, while the ion flux was shown to decrease with increasing Vb. The diamond film grown with a high ion flux was composed of well-coalesced large scale islands as compared to that with a low ion flux. The results provide a way to control ion energy and flux independently and its advantage for ion-assisted diamond growth. © 1999 American Institute of Physics.