Diamond thin films are grown on silicon substrates by only using methanol and argon mixtures in microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition (MPCVD) reactor. It is worth mentioning that the novel strategy makes the synthesis reaction works smoothly without hydrogen atmosphere, and the substrates temperature is only 500 °C. The evidence of surface morphology and thickness under different time is obtained by characterizing the samples using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). X-ray diffractometer (XRD) spectrum reveals that the preferential orientation of (111) plane sample is obtained. The Raman spectra indicate that the dominant component of all the samples is a diamond. Moreover, the diamond phase content of the targeted films was quantitatively analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) method, and the surface roughness of diamond films was investigated by atomic force microscope (AFM). Meanwhile, the possible synthesis mechanism of the diamond films in methanol- and argon-mixed atmosphere was discussed.
Keywords: Diamond films; Methanol; Microwave plasma CVD; Synthesis strategy.