Abstract

Charged carbon clusters which are formed by the gas activation are suggested to be responsible for the formation of the metastable diamond film. The number of carbon atoms in the cluster that can reverse the stability between diamond and graphite by the capillary effect increases sensitively with increasing the surface energy ratio of graphite to diamond. The gas activation process produces charges such as electrons and ions, which are energetically the strong heterogeneous nucleation sites for the supersaturated carbon vapor, leading to the formation of the charged clusters. Once the carbon clusters are charged, the surface energy of diamond can be reduced by electrocapillarity while that of graphite cannot because diamond is dielectric and graphite is conducting. Some experimental evidences supporting this charged cluster model will be presented.

© 1995 Optical Society of America