A KINETIC MODEL FOR THE INITIAL GROWTH OF DIAMOND FILMS

Based on a surface reaction mechanism for diamond deposition from the gas phase, a kinetic model is developed to describe diamond nucleation sites and the initial stage of diamond growth in chemical vapor deposition. The timein dependent solutions to the rate equations, which describe the steady-state growth of diamond films, is obtained analytically for the case of small ratio of car bon flux to atomic hydrogen flux. The time-dependent solutions obtained by nume rical methods for large ratio of carbon to atomic hydrogen flux describe the nucleation and initial gorwth stage of diamond films. This model suggests some general predictions for diamond nucleation and growth and can be used to explain several important experimental phenomena observed by others.