Emissive species distributions in a DC arcjet plasma for diamond film synthesis

Summary form only given. An Ar-H/sub 2/-CH/sub 4/ arcjet plasma was experimentally analyzed to obtain 2-D images of emissive species. The distributions of such emissive species as H (656 nm, 486 nm), C/sub 2/ (516 nm), and CH (431 nm) were revealed to have a good correlation with the thickness and structure of diamond films. Though nonemissive radicals of CH/sub 3/ and ground state H atoms have been reported to play an important role in diamond growth, the images of the emissive radicals were found to be useful for the prediction of the diamond growth. The distribution of emissive radicals in a high-density plasma can be easily obtained compared with laser-induced fluorescence or IR absorption spectroscopy, which provides the nonemissive radical distribution following complicated experimental procedures.