Influence of long time nucleation on homogeneity of diamond films grown onsilicon substrates

The nature of the nucleation centers formed during the so-called bias enhan cement nucleation (BEN) of chemical vapor deposited diamond is still an ope n question. We address this problem by studying a long time nucleation proc ess and its impact upon the nucleation density and quality of grown films d eposited on Si substrates by hot filament chemical vapor deposition (HF CVD ) method. It was found that the nucleation density of the growth centers on silicon wafers increased drastically with the increasing process time up t o a few hours.