Sien Drijkoningen

Ultra-thin nanocrystalline diamond membranes as pressure sensors for harsh environments

Glass and diamond are suitable materials for harsh environments. Here, a procedure for fabricating ultra-thin nanocrystalline diamond membranes on glass, acting as an electrically insulating substrate, is presented. In order to investigate the pressure sensing properties of such membranes, a circular, highly conductive boron-doped nanocrystalline diamond membrane with a resistivity of 38 mΩ cm, a thickness of 150 nm, and a diameter of 555 μm is fabricated in the middle of a Hall bar structure. During the application of a positive differential pressure under the membrane (0–0.7 bar), four point piezoresistive effect measurements are performed. From these measurements, it can be concluded that the resistance response of the membrane, as a function of differential pressure, is highly linear and sensitive.

Evidence for phase separation of ethanol-water mixtures at the hydrogen terminated nanocrystalline diamond surface.

Interactions between ethanol-water mixtures and a hydrophobic hydrogen terminated nanocrystalline diamond surface, are investigated by sessile drop contact angle measurements. The surface free energy of the hydrophobic surface, obtained with pure liquids, differs strongly from values obtained by ethanol-water mixtures. Here, a model which explains this difference is presented. The model suggests that, due to a higher affinity of ethanol for the hydrophobic surface, when compared to water, a phase separation occurs when a mixture of both liquids is in contact with the H-terminated diamond surface. These results are supported by a computational study giving insight in the affinity and related interaction at the liquid-solid interface.

Enhanced optoelectronic performances of vertically aligned hexagonal boron nitride nanowalls-nanocrystalline diamond heterostructures

Field electron emission (FEE) properties of vertically aligned hexagonal boron nitride nanowalls (hBNNWs) grown on Si have been markedly enhanced through the use of nitrogen doped nanocrystalline diamond (nNCD) films as an interlayer. The FEE properties of hBNNWs-nNCD heterostructures show a low turn-on field of 15.2 V/μm, a high FEE current density of 1.48 mA/cm2 and life-time up to a period of 248 min. These values are far superior to those for hBNNWs grown on Si substrates without the nNCD interlayer, which have a turn-on field of 46.6 V/μm with 0.21 mA/cm2 FEE current density and life-time of 27 min. Cross-sectional TEM investigation reveals that the utilization of the diamond interlayer circumvented the formation of amorphous boron nitride prior to the growth of hexagonal boron nitride. Moreover, incorporation of carbon in hBNNWs improves the conductivity of hBNNWs. Such a unique combination of materials results in efficient electron transport crossing nNCD-to-hBNNWs interface and inside the hBNNWs that results in enhanced field emission of electrons. The prospective application of these materials is manifested by plasma illumination measurements with lower threshold voltage (370 V) and longer life-time, authorizing the role of hBNNWs-nNCD heterostructures in the enhancement of electron emission.

Large piezoresistive effect in surface conductive nanocrystalline diamond

Surface conductivity in hydrogen-terminated single crystal diamond is an intriguing phenomenon for fundamental reasons as well as for application driven research. Surface conductivity is also observed in hydrogen-terminated nanocrystalline diamond although the electronic transport mechanisms remain unclear. In this work, the piezoresistive properties of intrinsic surface conductive nanocrystalline diamond are investigated. A gauge factor of 35 is calculated from bulging a diamond membrane of 350 nm thick, with a diameter of 656 μm and a sheet resistance of 1.45 MΩ/sq. The large piezoresistive effect is reasoned to originate directly from strain-induced changes in the resistivity of the grain boundaries. Additionally, we ascribe a small time-dependent fraction of the piezoresistive effect to charge trapping of charge carriers at grain boundaries. In conclusion, time-dependent piezoresistive effect measurements act as a tool for deeper understanding the complex electronic transport mechanisms induced by grain boundaries in a polycrystalline material or nanocomposite.

Field electron emission enhancement in lithium implanted and annealed nitrogen-incorporated nanocrystalline diamond films

The field electron emission (FEE) properties of nitrogen-incorporated nanocrystalline diamond films were enhanced due to Li-ion implantation/annealing processes. Li-ion implantation mainly induced the formation of electron trap centers inside diamond grains, whereas post-annealing healed the defects and converted the a-C phase into nanographite, forming conduction channels for effective transport of electrons. This resulted in a high electrical conductivity of 11.0 S/cm and enhanced FEE performance with a low turn-on field of 10.6 V/μm, a high current density of 25.5 mA/cm2 (at 23.2 V/μm), and a high lifetime stability of 1,090 min for nitrogen incorporated nanocrystalline diamond films.

The pressure sensitivity of wrinkled B-doped nanocrystalline diamond membranes

Nanocrystalline diamond (NCD) membranes are promising candidates for use as sensitive pressure sensors. NCD membranes are able to withstand harsh conditions and are easily fabricated on glass. In this study the sensitivity of heavily boron doped NCD (B:NCD) pressure sensors is evaluated with respect to different types of supporting glass substrates, doping levels and membrane sizes. Higher pressure sensing sensitivities are obtained for membranes on Corning Eagle 2000 glass, which have a better match in thermal expansion coefficient with diamond compared to those on Schott AF45 glass. In addition, it is shown that larger and more heavily doped membranes are more sensitive. After fabrication of the membranes, the stress in the B:NCD films is released by the emergence of wrinkles. A better match between the thermal expansion coefficient of the NCD layer and the underlying substrate results in less stress and a smaller amount of wrinkles as confirmed by Raman spectroscopy and 3D surface imaging.

Enhancement of plasma illumination characteristics of few-layer graphene-diamond nanorods hybrid

Few-layer graphene (FLG) was catalytically formed on vertically aligned diamond nanorods (DNRs) by a high temperature annealing process. The presence of 4-5 layers of FLG on DNRs was confirmed by transmission electron microscopic studies. It enhances the field electron emission (FEE) behavior of the DNRs. The FLG-DNRs show excellent FEE characteristics with a low turn-on field of 4.21 V μm-1 and a large field enhancement factor of 3480. Moreover, using FLG-DNRs as cathode markedly enhances the plasma illumination behavior of a microplasma device, viz not only the plasma current density is increased, but also the robustness of the devices is improved.

Growth, structural and plasma illumination properties of nanocrystalline diamond-decorated graphene nanoflakes

The improvement of the plasma illumination (PI) properties of a microplasma device due to the application of nanocrystalline diamond-decorated graphene nanoflakes (NCD-GNFs) as a cathode is investigated. The improved plasma illumination (PI) behavior is closely related to the enhanced field electron emission (FEE) properties of the NCD-GNFs. The NCD-GNFs possess better FEE characteristics with a low turn-on field of 9.36 V μm−1 to induce the field emission, a high FEE current density of 2.57 mA cm−2 and a large field enhancement factor of 2380. The plasma can be triggered at a low voltage of 380 V, attaining a large plasma current density of 3.8 mA cm−2 at an applied voltage of 570 V. In addition, the NCD-GNF cathode shows enhanced lifetime stability of more than 21 min at an applied voltage of 430 V without showing any sign of degradation, whereas the bare GNFs can last only 4 min. The superior FEE and PI properties of the NCD-GNFs are ascribed to the unique combination of diamond and graphene. Transmission electron microscopic studies reveal that the NCD-GNFs contain nano-sized diamond films evenly decorated on the GNFs. Nanographitic phases in the grain boundaries of the diamond grains form electron transport networks that lead to improvement in the FEE characteristics of the NCD-GNFs.

n-Type phosphorus-doped nanocrystalline diamond: electrochemical and in situ Raman spectroelectrochemical study

Electrochemical and in situ Raman spectroelectrochemical characterization of n-type phosphorus-doped nanocrystalline diamond (P-NCD) is carried out. The P-NCD films are grown by microwave plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition and doped with phosphorus at a concentration of 10 000 ppm in the gas phase. Micro-Raman spectroscopy determines the film quality (presence of graphitic or amorphous phases). All electrochemical measurements are performed in aqueous 0.5 M H2SO4 electrolyte solution. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) confirms the n-type conduction of a P-NCD electrode and from the Mott–Schottky plot the donor concentration (ND) of 1.8 × 1018 cm−3 is determined. The in situ Raman spectroelectrochemistry is performed in the potential range from −1.5 to 1.5 V vs. Ag/AgCl using two laser excitations (633 nm and 488 nm). In the case of the as-prepared P-NCD film, the Raman modes belonging to non-diamond (sp2) impurities change their intensities during applied potentials. The intensity of such Raman peaks increases at cathodic potentials, while at anodic potentials they disappear. On the other hand, the intensity and position of the sp3 diamond peak (1334 cm−1) exhibit no spectroelectrochemical changes and the same holds for the photoluminescence peak (at 1.68 eV) assigned to Si-impurities. After several cyclic voltammetry (CV) scans, the electrochemical potential window of a P-NCD electrode increases. This is due to the “electrochemical burning” of impurities at large anodic potentials, which is also confirmed by in situ Raman spectroelectrochemistry. Angle-resolved XPS confirms partial electrochemical oxidation of P-NCD in thin surface layers.

Low temperature growth of diamond films on optical fibers using Linear Antenna CVD system

It is not trivial to achieve a good quality diamond-coated fibre interface due to a large difference in the properties and composition of the diamond films (or use coating even) and the optical fibre material, i.e. fused silica. One of the biggest problems is the high temperature during the deposition which influences the optical fibre or optical fibre sensor structure (e.g. long-period gratings (LPG)). The greatest advantage of a linear antenna microwave plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition system (LA MW CVD) is the fact that it allows to grow the diamond layers at low temperature (below 300°C) [1].High quality nanocrystalline diamond (NCD) thin films with thicknesses ranging from 70 nm to 150 nm, were deposited on silicon, glass and optical fibre substrates [2]. Substrates pretreatment by dip-coating and spin coating process with a dispersion consisting of detonation nanodiamond (DND) in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) has been applied. During the deposition process the continuous mode of operation of the LA MW CVD system was used, which produces a continuous wave at a maximum power of 1.9 kW (in each antenna). Diamond films on optical fibres were obtained at temperatures below 350°C, providing a clear improvement of results compared to our earlier work [3].The samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging to investigate the morphology of the nanocrystalline diamond films. The film growth rate, film thickness, and optical properties in the VIS-NIR range, i.e. refractive index and extinction coefficient will be discussed based on measurements on reference quartz plates by using spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE).