HIGHLY ORIENTED, TEXTURED DIAMOND FILMS ON SILICON VIA BIAS-ENHANCED NUCLEATION AND TEXTURED GROWTH

Highly oriented diamond films were grown on single-crystal silicon sub strates. Textured films were first nucleated by a two-step process tha t involved the conversion of the silicon surface to an epitaxial SiC l ayer, followed by bias-enhanced nucleation. The nucleation stage, whic h 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 relati ve to the silicon substrate. The diamond films were characterized by b oth SEM and Raman spectroscopy. Structural defects in the film are dis cussed in the context of their potential effect on the electrical char acteristics of the resulting film.