Thermodynamics and high temperature chemistry of the chemical vapor deposition of diamond films

The chemical vapor deposition of carbon films is analyzed using the thermodynamic quasiequilibrium model and a phase diagram for the carbon-hydrogen system is obtained. When the enhanced etching of graphite by hydrogen is included in the model, a region in the phase diagram where diamond is the only stable solid phase of carbon is predicted, which is consistent with the experimental results of Matsumoto et al. (3). Details of the model and additional comparisons with experiment are presented.