Diamond films were prepared by hot filament chemical vapor deposition(HFCVD) in a gas mixtures system of methane, argon and hydrogen. The composition and morphology in different deposition pressures and filament structures were investigated, as well as the friction and wear-resistant properties. The sp3-bonded content was measured and nano-mechanics properties were also tested. Results of atomic force microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy show that the diamond films whose surface roughness is less than 10 nm and sp3-bonded content is greater than 70% can be prepared by bistratal filament structure with optimized proportion of Ar. It is also shown that the friction coefficient of diamond films is 0.13 and its wear-resistant property is excellent. Nano-mechanics of films shows that its elastic modulus is up to 650 MPa and hardness can reach higher than 60 GPa. The diamond films with excellent performance have a broad application prospect in microelectromechanical systems(MEMS).
The microscopic mechanical characteristics of ultranano-crystalline diamond films which were prepared in four different atmospheres were investigated for the applications in microelectron-mechanical system（MEMS）.The loading-unloading curves and the change of modulus and hardness of samples along with depth were achieved through nanoindenter.The results show that the films which are made in atmosphere without Ar have the highest recovery of elasticity,hardness（72.9 GPa） and elastic modulus（693.7 GPa） among the samples.Meanwhile,samples fabricated at a low Ar content have higher hardness and modulus.All the results above demonstrate that atmosphere without Ar or low Ar content leads to better mechanical properties of nanodiamond films that are the candidates for applications in MEMS.
Wurtzite aluminum nitride（AlN） films were deposited on Si（100） wafers under various sputtering pressures by radio-frequency（RF） reactive magnetron sputtering. The film properties were investigated by XRD, SEM, AFM, XPS and nanoindenter techniques. It is suggested from the XRD patterns that highly c-axis oriented films grow preferentially at low pressures and the growth of（100） planes are preferred at higher pressures. The SEM and AFM images both reveal that the deposition rate and the surface roughness decrease while the average grain size increases with increasing the sputtering pressure. XPS results show that lowering the sputtering pressure is a useful way to minimize the incorporation of oxygen atoms into the AlN films and hence a film with closer stoichiometric composition is obtained. From the measurement of nanomechanical properties of AlN thin films, the largest hardness and elastic modulus are obtained at 0.30 Pa.
A series of boron-doped polycrystalline diamond films were prepared by hot filament （HF） chemical vapor deposition on Nb substrates. The effects of B/C ratio of reaction gas on film morphology, growth rate, chemical bonding states, phase composition and electrochemical properties of each deposited sample were studied by scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectra, X-ray diffraction, microhardness indentation, and electrochemical analysis. Results show that the average grain size of diamond and the growth rate decrease with increasing the B/C ratio. The diamond films exhibit excellent adhesion under Vickers microhardness testing （9.8 N load）. The sample with 2% B/C ratio has a wider potential window and a lower background current as well as a faster redox reaction rate in H2SO4 solution and KFe（CN）6 redox system compared with other doping level electrodes.
