Fabrication of diamond nano-whiskers

Aligned diamond whiskers were formed by air plasma etching of polycrystalli ne diamond films. A small amount of Mo was deposited on the diamond substra te for use as an etch-resistant mask, and the negatively biased substrate w as etched by RF or DC plasma. The shape and the density of the whiskers dep ended on the etching parameters, such as substrate temperature, chamber pre ssure, bias voltage, etching power, and the amount of Mo. If the substrate temperature was high, for example, the whiskers became thick. With the opti mum conditions, we could fabricate diamond whiskers as thin as 60 nm with a density of 50/mum(2). (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.