PECVD of carbon by inverted fireballs: From sputtering, bias enhanced nucleation to deposition

The novel method of so called “inverted fireballs” is employed to different surface processes important in carbon deposition. This new approach of PECVD offers the possibility to influence and vary the reactive plasma in a wide range. Details of the experimental setup required for a stable inverted fireball are presented and the advantages and limits of this novel method are discussed. Sputtering of carbon films, nucleation of carbon with negative biased substrate and growth of nano-diamonds are outlined together with characterizations by means of SEM, EDX, Raman, XRD and XPS. Also an ab-initio calculation of the Raman spectrum of a small diamond cluster is presented and discussed in comparison with obtained experimental results.