Influence of reacting gas content on structural and electro-physical properties of nanostructured diamond films grown by chemical vapor deposition with crossed E/H field glow discharge stabilization Iurii Nasieka a, ⁎, Victor Strelchuk a , Yuriy Stubrov a , Stanislav Dudnik b , Konstantin Koshevoy b , Vladimir Strel'nitskij b a V. Ye. Lashkaryov Institute of Semiconductor Physics, NAS of Ukraine, 45 Pr. Nauky, Kyiv 03028, Ukraine b National Science Center “Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology”, 1, Akademicheskaya St., Kharkov 61108, Ukraine abstract article info Article history: Received 28 March 2016 Received in revised form 8 August 2016 Accepted 18 August 2016 Available online 23 August 2016 The method and setup for polycrystalline diamond films deposition from the gas-phase using the direct current (DC) glow discharge stabilized by crossed E/H field are presented. The mentioned method was used for the prep- aration of nanostructured diamond films. The nanostructure formation was realized by N 2 addition to Ar/CH 4 /H 2 plasma. The detailed study of electro-physical, morphological and structural properties was done using simple two-electrodes scheme of resistivity measurements, atomic force and scanning electron microscopies as well as Raman spectroscopy. The data of electro-physical measurements is in good correlation with the data of optical measurements and complement each other showing the complete picture of the processes of modification of the diamond films structure induced by nitrogen atoms incorporation. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Diamond films Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) Atomic force microscopy (AFM) Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) Micro-Raman scattering (μ-RS) Photoluminescence (PL) 1. Introduction The development of the processes for preparation of the nanostruc- tured diamond films is an important step in the way for creation of new carbon-based materials. It was ascertained that reduction of the crystal- line sizes in polycrystalline diamond films causes the substantial de- crease in the growth of surface roughness as well as induces the changes of electrical, optical and recombination properties inherent to these films [1–5]. They become attractive for electrochemical applica- tion, tribology, electronic and optical devices, supercapacitors, sensors or fuel cells as well as medicine [6]. The most developed methods for preparation of the nanostructured diamond films are the following. Firstly, nanostructured diamond films can be produced by cathodic arc or magnetron sputtering in the presence of a relatively high gas pressure to favor the aggregation of sp 2 clusters to be incorporated in the films. Secondly, supersonic cluster beam deposition can also be used to grow nanostructured thin films where the original carbon cluster struc- ture is substantially maintained after the deposition [7]. These films are characterized by a memory effect, i.e. they are partially reminiscent of the precursor clusters. Small carbon clusters mainly have chain or ring structures, where the larger clusters have the tendency to form three- dimensional cage-like structures characterized by sp 2 coordination. Pe- culiar to these films is often the presence of carbon sp 1 chains. Thirdly, X.T. Zhou developed a new process to get a stable substrate current and high-density diamond nucleation on mirror-polished sili- con by using double bias-assisted (hot filament chemical vapor deposi- tion) HFCVD method [8]. The preparation process included substrate pre-treatment, Ta filament carbonization, nucleation and growth of dia- mond film. Fourthly, nanocrystalline diamond coatings can be prepared by mi- crowave plasma chemical vapor deposition (MWCVD). The first ap- proach involves an increase of the methane concentration in the conventional CH 4 /H 2 gas mixture, leading to enhanced secondary nu- cleation rate, the second one – partial or complete substitution of hydro- gen by argon or nitrogen, resulting in change of the growth mechanism by inclusion of new film-forming species [9]. Also, the nanostructured diamond films can be produced by plasma enhanced chemical vapor de- position (PECVD) through N 2 addition to Ar/CH 4 /H 2 plasma [10–15]. Such films have become very attractive materials for microelectronics applications, since such films with N 2 doping have been shown to have moderate n- and p-type semiconductor characteristics. Both theoretical calculations and experimental data show that the preferen- tial incorporation of N atoms into grain boundaries of N-doped Thin Solid Films 616 (2016) 297–302 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: yunaseka@gmail.com (I. Nasieka). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tsf.2016.08.038 0040-6090/© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Thin Solid Films journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tsf