Flow control & monitoring for diamond coating

Diamond has got a unique wear resistance, which makes it a perfect coating for cutting tools. There are several techniques used in diamond coating processes, one of them is Hot Filament Chemical Vapour Deposition (HFCVD).

This technique uses a dilute mixture of carbon containing gas. The gas, such as methane in hydrogen, is thermally activated at sub atmospheric pressures by a hot filament. The gas mixture and gas flow must be cautiously controlled; flow controllers are used to guarantee the proper amount of gas and the repeatability of the process. 

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One of the most versatile methods for the production of diamond films is the hot-filament vapour deposition technique (HFCVD) where the gas mixture is heated by being passed along thin W or Ta wires (∅100 to 300 μm) that are heated up to 2400ºC.
Usually only two gases are needed: H₂ and CH₄, the methane being diluted at 1 to 2 vol% in the hydrogen. The total pressure inside these cold-wall HFCVD reactors can vary typically between 20 mbar and 200 mbar, the total flow depending on the size and geometry of the reactor chamber.

A recent type of diamond coatings is termed nanocrystalline diamond (NCD), in opposition to the microcrystalline diamond films (MCD). NCD is characterized by a nanometric crystallite size (1 nm to 50 nm) and an extremely smooth surface that retains most of the hardness of MCD and has got improved wear and friction behaviour relatively to MCD. These coatings generally need the addition of a third, inert gas, that contributes to the formation of NCD by enhancing re-nucleation processes during growth an by changing the thermal load of the gases inside the chamber, also affecting the substrate heating. This system is more complex than the MCD one and further care is needed in the control and monitoring of the feed gases.