02/05/2025
Blue Wave Semiconductors presented its latest innovation, the Diamond Exploratory and Applied Research Microwave Plasma Chemical V***r Deposition (DEAR MPCVD) system, at the Materials Research Society’s Fall Meeting in Boston, MA, 2024. DEAR MPCVD system represents the future of CVD diamond research, offering a versatile and efficient platform for applied research in diamond-based technologies.
Diamond, a wide-bandgap material, is a cornerstone for next-generation technologies, including quantum energy generation, sensing, and advanced electronics. High-quality thin films for device applications can be fabricated using Chemical V***r Deposition (CVD) techniques. Among these, Microwave Plasma CVD (MPCVD) reactors are the most widely used for diamond growth. To enhance the properties of diamonds for electronic and quantum applications, doping is required, which can be achieved using in-situ CVD growth with the flow of dopant gas or by the ion implantation method. However, ion implantation introduces defects in the diamond lattice, making the CVD approach more suitable for device fabrication, scalability, and high-quality diamond growth.
In this direction, Blue Wave Semiconductors (BWS) has designed and developed an optimized microwave cavity that supports a larger diameter quartz tube with differential pumping vacuum seals, multiple optical viewports for temperature, plasma process, and growth monitoring, and a sample stage that creates efficient microwave plasma above the substrate (substrate size up to 12 mm x 12 mm). The system operates with various gas flow ratios, a wide range of deposition pressures, and substrate temperatures ranging from 650°C to 1100°C, enabling the deposition of homoepitaxial, large-grain microcrystalline, and nanocrystalline CVD diamond films for a variety of applications. The DEAR MPCVD system uses microwave power ranging from 650 W to 1.5 kW, achieving growth rates from 0.2 microns/hr to over 10 µm/hr.
The DEAR MPCVD system has a unique central feature, an interchangeable quartz tube that creates a multi-dopant system required for future breakthroughs in quantum and electronic grade diamonds. A wide variety of dopants are possible using this tool including exotic dopants that require high operating pressure due to their high v***r pressures. Blue Wave designed differentially pumped quartz tube adapters specifically for DEAR MPCVD to address the issues of leak rate and contamination from traditional quartz interfaces.
The DEAR MPCVD system has demonstrated high-quality CVD diamond growth using ~1 kW of microwave power. Crystalline samples have been characterized by using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD), XRD, Raman Spectroscopy, and Photoluminescence / Cathodoluminescence at room temperature (RT) and low temperature (LT).