Near perfect heteroepitaxy of diamond islands on Si(III)

Near perfect diamond island structures on Si(lll) are grown by microwave PE CVD at low methane concentration and high substrate temperature. The (111) plane isolated diamond islands are well aligned on the substrate with the m osaic distribution of 0.03 FWHM, demonstrating a nearly perfect heteroepita xy. The high strain in the isolated islands is relieved on contact with oth er islands, which implies that the strain relaxes by the formation of defec ts such as misfit dislocations; this is suggested to be the origin of the d egradation of the diamond crystals with growth time.