Microwave plasma chemical vapour deposition diamond nucleation on ferrous substrates with Ti and Cr interlayers

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2002

Authors

Silva, FJG (Author) Other; Baptista, APM (Author) FEUP; Pereira, E (Author) Other; Teixeira, V (Author) Other; Fan, QH (Author) Other; Fernandes, AJS (Author) Other; Costa, FM (Author) Other

Journal

Title: Diamond and Related Materials

Vol. 11

Pages: 1617-1622

ISSN: 0925-9635

Publisher: Elsevier

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 36 Citations

ISI Web of Science

Scopus - 40 Citations

COMPENDEX

Scientific classification

FOS: Engineering and technology > Materials engineering

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-000-N2Z

DOI: 10.1016/S0925-9635(02)00029-8

Abstract (EN): Diamond-coated steel is considered an important issue in synthetic diamond technology due to the great economical importance of enhancing the wear resistance and surface hardness of commercial Fe-based alloys. However, direct diamond coating by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) is rather problematic-adhesion and growth are seriously affected. The use of interlayers is a common approach to minimise these problems. This work reports an investigation on the establishment of good nucleation and growth conditions of diamond films by microwave plasma CVD (MPCVD) on ferrous substrates coated with Ti and Cr interlayers. Commercial grade ferrous substrates were pre-coated with commercial interlayers by sputtering (Ti, Cr) and electroplating (Cr) techniques. Steel substrates led to better results than iron cast substrates. The best films were obtained on Ti pre-coated steel substrate. The results on Cr interlayers pointed to the advantage of electroplating over the physical vapour deposition (PVD) sputtering. From the two selected parameter sets for diamond deposition, the one using lower power level conducted to the best results. Initial roughness and growth parameters were found to counteract on the uniformity of the diamond films. The morphology was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), the roughness was estimated by profilometry, while diamond quality and stress state were evaluated by mu-Raman spectroscopy. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 6