Advanced ceramics synthesized by inductively coupled plasma with inner RF antenna

Nakagaki, Keita; Yamauchi, Toshihiko; Kanno, Yoshinori*; Kobayashi, Seiji*

The CVD system by 27.12 MHz RF heating plasma discharge was developed to investigate the synthesis of the advanced ceramics, particularly diamond. Our system was unique, whose four turns RF antenna coil was installed inside of chamber. Here, we found the interesting physical behavior for the first time which the charge coupled plasma (CCP) changed to the inductively coupled plasma (ICP) suddenly at the threshold power. The plasma characteristics which were measured by the double probe were Te10 eV and ne 10E11 cm suitable for the dissociation. No impurity was observed in plasma, judging from the spectroscopic measurement. The ball-like diamond was synthesized on the silicon (Si) substrate by the low power RF heating plasma.