Expanding the TM01-Mode MPCVD Reactor Based on Electromagnetic Mode Amplification for Potential 4-Inch Diamond Deposition

Diamond is becoming an increasingly popular substrate material in the semiconductor industry due to its high thermal conductivity and wide forbidden band characteristics. With the development of high-power electronic devices, the demand for large-area single-crystal diamond films is also dramatically increasing. Microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition (MPCVD) technology is the dominant method for producing high-quality diamond films due to its advantages of high controllability, fast deposition rate, and low contamination. Despite the excellent performance of MPCVD reactors in various aspects, the question of how to increase the plasma size while improving its homogeneity remains a challenge for device design and optimization. This paper proposes a method to expand the geometrical sizes of the TM01-mode MPCVD reactor while maintaining the mode’s axisymmetric homogeneity. The size-enlarged TM01-mode MPCVD reactor was first designed and optimized with electromagnetic simulations. A multiphysics model that accounted for the microwave field, hydrogen gas discharge, and energy conservation was proposed to evaluate the performance of the MPCVD reactor afterwards. The results demonstrate that the size-enlarged MPCVD reactor can generate a plasma sphere with a diameter of 4 inches while still maintaining TM01-mode single-mode transmission, either with or without plasma. Its outstanding robustness and adaptability underlie excellent potential for large-area diamond thin-film deposition.