• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.239-244
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• 2019

Two hydrogenation surface modifications, namely hydrogen atmosphere heat treatment and hydrogen plasma treatment, were found to lead to improved dispersion of nanodiamond (ND) seed particles and enhanced nucleation density for deposition of smooth ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) film. After hydrogenation, the C-O and O-H surface functionalities on the surface of nanodiamond particles were converted to the C-H surface functionalities, and the Zeta potential was increased. As the degree of dispersion was improved, the size of nanodiamond aggregates decreased significantly and nucleation density increased dramatically. After hydrogen heat treatment at 600℃, average size of ND particles was greatly reduced from 3.5 ㎛ to 34.5 nm and a very high nucleation of ~3.9 × 10¹¹ nuclei/㎠ was obtained for the seeded Si surface.