Microscopic properties of MPCVD diamond coatings studied by micro-Raman and micro-photoluminescence spectroscopy

Diamond coatings were deposited on silicon (100) substrate using the microwave plasma chemical vapour deposition (MPCVD) technique at different process conditions. Process parameters such as CH4–H 2 gas mixture concentration, microwave power, chamber pressure and substrate temperature were varied. The diamond coatings were characterized by micro-Raman and micro-photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy techniques. In this paper we report a comparison of the overall quality of MPCVD polycrystalline diamond coatings grown under different processing conditions in terms of stress distribution, thickness uniformity and surface roughness. Micro-Raman spectroscopy studies over various points on the deposited coating showed that the Raman line widths of diamond peak varied from 3.2 to 18.3 cm−1 with the variation of CH4 and H2 gas concentration. The micro-PL spectra suggested the presence of impurity concentration and defects within the diamond coating synthesized at different processing conditions. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images provide the direct evidence of the presence of crystal defects which corroborates the Raman and PL results. The coherence scanning interferometry (CSI) showed that surface roughness of diamond coating varied from 0.43 to 11 μm with thickness at different positions of the three coating samples. It has been concluded that Raman line-width broadening and Raman-shift are due to the presence of crystal defects as well as non-uniform distribution of stresses present in the diamond crystals of the coating, due to the incorporation of Si as impurity element and non-uniform temperature distribution during growth. Defect density gets reduced at higher processing temperatures. It is also being proposed that better thickness uniformity and lower surface roughness can be achieved for coatings deposited at low methane concentration under optimized process conditions.