Function of aluminum coating on fabrication of nanowhiskers by radio frequency plasma etching

摘要

Diamond nanowhiskers could be obtained by anisotropic etching of as-grown and aluminum coated diamond films in a radio frequency (RF) Ar/O_2 plasma. The distributions of diamond nanowhiskers were on the presence of Al coatings. For the Al-coated diamond film, the distribution of the whiskers was almost same as that of the coated Al particles. However, for the as-grown diamond film, the whiskers randomly formed on the diamond surface with higher etching rate. Comparing these two situations, we found that Al coating was a critical factor in the etching process which served as mask contributing to restraining etching the film underneath. The whiskers (1 mu m in height and 50 nm in diameter) could be obtained under optimum etching conditions. In addition, the dependence of the distribution of the whiskers on Al coating time was demonstrated.