Highly oriented, textured diamond films on silicon via bias-enhanced nucleation and textured growth

Highly oriented diamond films were grown on single-crystal silicon substrates. Textured films were first nucleated by a two-step process that involved the conversion of the silicon surface to an epitaxial SiC layer, followed by bias-enhanced nucleation. The nucleation stage, which produced a partially oriented diamond film, was immediately followed by a (100) textured growth process, thus resulting in a film surface where approximately 100% of the grains are epitaxially oriented relative to the silicon substrate. The diamond films were characterized by both SEM and Raman spectroscopy. Structural defects in the film are discussed in the context of their potential effect on the electrical characteristics of the resulting film.