Effect of Substrate Material on the Deposition of Polycrystalline Diamond: an XRD analysis

Abstract

Deposition of Polycrystalline Diamond (PCD)has been done simultaneously on two substratesnamely silicon nitride (Si 3 N 4 ) and tungstencarbide (WC), two materials commonly used ascutting tools, in a hot filament chemical vapour deposition (HFCVD) reactor. This researchdescribes a comparison of XRD analysis of PCD deposited, as the substrate surface were pretreatment were manipulated in order to havebetter adhesion while influencing the diamond coating properties. Two surface pretreatmentswere carried out on Si 3 N 4 substrate i.e. chemicaltreatment and mechanical treatment whereas for WC substrate, only chemical treatment gave promising results. After that, both pretreated substrates undergo seeding process to enhancediamond nucleation. The seeding process wasvaried with different concentration of siliconcarbide (SiC) for WC substrate. The analysis of XRD results consist of qualitative analysis, and semi-quantitative analysis, including preferred orientation by manipulation of the growth parameter, α , and using Bragg-Brentanomethod. The results show that comparison of thePCD grown on two substrates, Si3N4 and WC,shows Si3N4 preferes (111) planes more thandiamonds grown on WC. WhileWC preferes(110) planes more than diamonds grown onSi3N4.