Boron-Doped Diamond/GaN Heterojunction—The Influence of the Low-Temperature Deposition

We report a method of growing a boron-doped diamond film by plasma-assisted chemical vapour deposition utilizing a pre-treatment of GaN substrate to give a high density of nucleation. CVD diamond was deposited on GaN substrate grown epitaxially via the molecular-beam epitaxy process. To obtain a continuous diamond film with the presence of well-developed grains, the GaN substrates are exposed to hydrogen plasma prior to deposition. The diamond/GaN heterojunction was deposited in methane ratio, chamber pressure, temperature, and microwave power at 1%, 50 Torr, 500 °C, and 1100 W, respectively. Two samples with different doping were prepared 2000 ppm and 7000 [B/C] in the gas phase. SEM and AFM analyses revealed the presence of well-developed grains with an average size of 100 nm. The epitaxial GaN substrate-induced preferential formation of (111)-facetted diamond was revealed by AFM and XRD. After the deposition process, the signal of the GaN substrate is still visible in Raman spectroscopy (showing three main GaN bands located at 565, 640 and 735 cm−1) as well as in typical XRD patterns. Analysis of the current–voltage characteristics as a function of temperature yielded activation energy equal to 93.8 meV.

Experimental study on the effect of surface texture on tribological properties of nanodiamond films under water lubrication

The effect of nanoscale surface texture on the frictional and wear performances of nanocrystalline diamond films under water-lubricating conditions were comparatively investigated using a reciprocating ball-on-flat tribometer. Although the untreated nanocrystalline diamond film shows a stable frictional state with an average friction coefficient of 0.26, the subsequent textured films show a beneficial effect on rapidly reducing the friction coefficient, which decreased to a stable value of 0.1. Furthermore, compared with the nanocrystalline diamond coating, the textured films showed a large decreasing rate of the corresponding ball wear rate from 4.16 × 10−3 to 1.15 × 10−3 mm3/N/m. This is due to the fact that the hydrodynamic fluid film composed of water and debris can provide a good lubrication environment, so the entire friction process has reached the state of fluid lubrication. Meanwhile, the surface texture can greatly improve the hydrophilicity of the diamond films, and as the texture density increases, the water contact angle decreases from 94.75° of the nanocrystalline diamond film to 78.5° of the textured films. The proper textured diamond film (NCD90) exhibits superior tribological properties among all tested diamond films, such as short run-in period, low coefficient of friction, and wear rate.