Application of diamond films to electric propulsion: Low energy sputter yield measurement and MPD plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition

One application of chemically vapor deposited (CVD) diamond films under evaluation at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is the coating of ion thruster electrodes subject to sputter erosion from xenon ions. Sputter yields were measured for polycrystalline diamond, single crystal diamond, a carbon-carbon composite, and molybdenum subject to xenon ion bombardment. The tests were performed using a 3 cm Kaufman ion source to produce incident ions with energy in the range of 150–750 eV and a profilometry-based technique to measure the amount of sputtered material. The yields increased monotonically with energy with values ranging from 0.16 atoms/ion at 150 eV to 0.80 at 750 eV for the molybdenum and 0.06 to 0.14 for the carbon-carbon. At 150 eV the yield for both diamond samples was 0.07 and at 7 50 eV, 0.19 and 0.17 for the CVD and single crystal diamond respectively. In terms of erosion rate, this translates into a factor of 7–12 lower erosion rate for diamond compared to molybdenum and at least a factor of 1.5 compared to carbon-carbon. In addition, an experimental investigation of an electromagnetic (magnetoplasmadynamic or MPD) plasma source for diamond CVD was undertaken using gas mixtures of methane, hydrogen and argon. Numerous trials were conducted using methane to hydrogen mixture ratios of 1.5–3.5 percent by volume, four different methane injector configurations, and substrate biasing at potentials of 25–75 V positive with respect to facility ground. These tests were performed at discharge currents of 700–950 A at approximately 18 V (12–17 kW). Crystalline films were produced with growth rates of 0.8 to 6.3 microns/hr. X-ray diffraction spectroscopy was used to identify at least one unambiguous diamond peak in each sample. The films all exhibited poor Raman spectra with no well defined peak at 1332 cm−1 and a broad background possibly due to high background levels of nitrogen, defects, and metal vapor contamination. Finally, the potential benefits of the MPD source compared to more conventional electrothermal sources in terms of higher jet velocity and higher degrees of dissociation and ionization were investigated analytically.