from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
Diamond films are attractive materials for electronics, optics and medical applications. For these applications diamond film quality and controllable surface composition are often crucial parameters. In this work, in situ XPS analysis of chemical composition of H- and O-terminated nano- and microcrystalline diamond (NCD and MCD) films before and after their sputtering by the Ar+ cluster ion beam was investigated. Scanning electron microscopy confirmed sputtering of all diamond surfaces with a rate about 0.5 ± 0.2 nm / min. Raman spectroscopy and XPS revealed surface graphitization of diamond surface (transformation of sp3 carbon phase to sp2) induced by sputtering. Moreover, XPS data showed the presence of about 0.7 % of Ar atoms on the investigated diamond surface after 66 min of sputtering. Also, oxygen residuals (0.2 at. %) were still presented on the H-NCD surface after 66 min of sputtering. In contrast, no oxygen was found on the H-MCD surface just after 2 min of sputtering (in the depth about 1.5 nm). Surface composition is discussed in respect to the diamond films growth parameters and surface structure.
Keywords: diamond, depth profiling, XPS, sputtering, Raman© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.