The approach to diamond growth on levitating seed particles

We demonstrate the approach of diamond growth on levitating seed particles in a rf plasma. We introduce a hot filament chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique into the rf plasma chamber in order to obtain improved crystal growth. Firstly, we confirmed diamond nucleation on seed particles placed on a Si substrate using the hot filament CVD. The deposition conditions, namely the total pressure and the rf power, were chosen so that they correspond to particles levitation conditions. We observe that a hydrogen pre-treatment on the seed particles improves the nucleation. Secondly, we confirm the levitation of particles at high temperatures. Fine particles levitated in a plasma are particularly sensitive to thermophoretic effects due to inhomogeneities in the gas heating. Therefore, proper heating procedures are required for successful particles levitation.