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Sequential analysis of diamond nucleation on silicon (001) with bias enhanced nucleation using X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy and reflection high energy electron diffraction investigations
Author(s) -
Sarrieu C.,
Barth N.,
Guise A.,
Arnault J. C.,
Saada S.,
Barrat S.,
BauerGrosse E.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
physica status solidi (a)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.532
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1862-6319
pISSN - 1862-6300
DOI - 10.1002/pssa.200982234
Subject(s) - nucleation , diamond , x ray photoelectron spectroscopy , biasing , materials science , chemical vapor deposition , electron diffraction , reflection high energy electron diffraction , silicon , analytical chemistry (journal) , amorphous solid , material properties of diamond , diffraction , optoelectronics , crystallography , chemistry , optics , voltage , nuclear magnetic resonance , physics , composite material , organic chemistry , quantum mechanics , chromatography
Diamond synthesis by microwave plasma assisted chemical vapour deposition (MPCVD) with a bias enhanced nucleation (BEN) step constitutes the most efficient method to obtain heteroepitaxy and is also useful to reach high nucleation densities. In this study, sequential reflection high‐energy electron diffraction (RHEED) and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) investigations enabled us to highlight the formation of amorphous carbon and crystalline silicon carbide on the surface before diamond growth. By varying the bias voltage, we underlined an optimized value corresponding to a higher quantity of amorphous carbon. This quantity is strongly correlated to the diamond nucleation density. As for the quality of the SiC texture, this seems to be directly linked to bias voltage too: low bias voltages enable us to obtain high oriented 3C‐SiC whereas high bias voltages lead to a completely misoriented polycrystalline SiC film.