Papers by Keyword: Ultrananocrystalline Diamond (UNCD)

Abstract: Growth of ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD)/hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H) composite films without initial nucleation was realized by an coaxial arc plasma gun at a substrate-temperature of 550 °C and hydrogen-atmosphere of 53.3 Pa. The pulsed arc discharge was triggered at a repetition rate of 1 Hz. The deposition rate was 80 nm/min. X-ray diffraction measurements with 12-keV X-rays from synchrotron radiation indicated extremely broad rings from diamond and none from graphite. The UNCD crystallite diameters were estimated to be approximately 1.3 nanometers by using Scherrer’s equation. The sp3/(sp2+sp3) was estimated to be approximately 57% from the X-ray photoemission spectroscopy. The coaxial arc plasma gun is a new powerful method that might enable us to realize the supersaturated condition with highly energetic ions for the growth of UNCD.

Abstract: The growth of ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) by pulsed laser deposition necessitates hydrogen atmospheres during the deposition. Optical emission spectroscopy was used to study the roles of the hydrogen atmosphere on the UNCD growth. Time-resolved images of a plume that expanded from a laser-irradiation spot toward a substrate were taken using a high-speed ICCD camera equipped with narrow-bandpass filters. While the plume disappeared at the longest within 1 s in vacuum, the emission from C+ lasted above the substrate surface for approximately 7 microseconds at a hydrogen pressure of 53.3 Pa. Since emission lifetimes of species are approximately 10 nanoseconds, this implies that C+ ions collided actively for such a long time. The hydrogen atmosphere has a role of forming a high number density of C+ ions. In addition, we believe that atomic hydrogen that might be generated by the collisions with carbon species contributes to the UNCD crystallite formation by their terminating the dangling bonds of carbon clusters as theoretically predicted in previous reports.

Abstract: To better understand the responses of ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) under extreme working conditions, a numerical study is performed to investigate the size, loading rate and thermal effects on the material properties of UNCD films. A combined kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) and molecular dynamics (MD) method is first applied to simulate the growth of polycrystalline UNCD films. The responses of the resulting UNCD films with various grain sizes are then investigated by applying displacement–controlled tensile loading with different rates and temperatures in the MD simulations. The preliminary results presented in this paper provide a better understanding of the combined size, rate and thermal effects on the material properties of UNCD.