AFM investigation of silicon substrates for chemical vapour deposition of diamond films

AFM has been used to study surface modifications on silicon (100) substrates for CVD diamond deposition during bias pretreatment in a hot-filament reactor under various conditions. Both topographical images, force-distance measurements and chemical etching with HF have been implemented to obtain information on the processes involved. The results show, that the observed roughening, which strongly depends on the gas phase composition, is caused by chemical etching of the surface dominated by removal of elemental silicon via formation of silicon hydride.