Simple, safe, and economical microwave plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition facility

Abstract

A simple and economical microwave plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition facility has been developed and used for synthesis of diamond thin films. The system is similar to those developed by others but includes several unique features that make it particularly economical and safe, yet capable of producing high quality diamond films. A 2.45-GHz magnetron from a commercial microwave oven is used as the microwave power source. A conventional mixture of 0.2% methane in hydrogen is ionized in a bell jar reaction chamber located within a simple microwave cavity. By using a small hydrogen reservoir adjacent to the gas supply, an empty hydrogen tank can be replaced without interrupting film synthesis or causing any drift in plasma characteristics. Hence films can be deposited continuously for arbitrarily long periods while storing only a 24-h supply of explosive gases. System interlocks provide safe start-up and shut-down and allow unsupervised operation. Here we describe the electrical, microwave, and mechanical aspects of the system, and summarize the performance of the facility as used to reproducibly synthesize high quality diamond thin films.