Logitech Tribo helps to drive a revival into the growth and applications of NCD thin films.
15th December 2013
Logitech Tribo plays a key role in Nanodiamond project at three UK Universities.
Cardiff University School of Physics and Astronomy have been driving a project to demonstrate that Nanocrystalline Diamond (NCD) can retain the superior Young’s modulus (1,100 GPa) of single crystal diamond twinned with its ability to be grown at low temperatures (<450 o C), which has driven a revival into the growth and applications of NCD thin films.
However, owing to the competitive growth of crystals the resulting film has a roughness that evolves with film thickness, preventing NCD films from reaching their full potential in devices where a smooth film is required.
To reduce this roughness, films have been polished using Chemical Mechanical Polishing. A Logitech Tribo CMP tool equipped with a polyurethane/polyester polishing cloth and an alkaline colloidal silica polishing fluid has been used to polish NCD films. The resulting films have been characterised with Atomic Force Microscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy. Root mean square roughness values have been reduced from 18.3 nm to 1.7 nm over 25 µm , with roughness values as low as 0.42 nm over ∼0.25 µm .
