PRINTING HALF-TONE PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGES ON DIAMOND BY FOCUSED SILICON ION-IMPLANTATION

A process for creating archival records on a very long-lived durable m aterial is demonstrated. Optical and scanning electron microscope view able photographs were printed into the surface of a chemical vapor dep osition diamond wafer by silicon ion implantation. The damage caused b y the implant converts the transparent diamond to visible (black) form s of carbon. The photographs were printed using both halftone and gray -scale encoding. The halftone encoding was accomplished by implanting an area proportional to the desired optical density within the 1 mu m square pixel at a fixed area dose. This photograph may optionally be ' 'fixed'' by annealing the sample at 1000 degrees C. This transforms th e amorphous carbon to graphite. For the gray-scale encoded image, an 8 00 nm square is implanted with an ion dose proportional to the optical density of each pixel. (C) 1997 American Vacuum Society.