SUPERHARD COATINGS - PRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS

In the development of diamond and c-BN products the analytical methods for characterizing the surface, bulk and interface of the diamond coa tings are very important. SEM, Raman, XRD and IR are the methods used for characterization and SIMS, TEM, AES, NRA, RBS, XPS, STM, etc. are used for the investigation of special problems. The techniques for dia mond and c-BN production are briefly summarized to give an idea of the complex interactions between production, application and analytical c haracterization. The analytical methods for diamond characterization a nd many relevant results are summarized in this paper; some physical p roperties (e.g. thermal conductivity, transparency, etc.) and their in teraction with applications are also discussed.