Chemical vapor deposition of diamond on an adamantane-coated sapphire substrate

Abstract

Continuous diamond thin films can be grown on sapphire substrates by microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition utilizing a pretreatment of adamantane dip coating on the substrate for enhanced nucleation. Scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy show that 〈111〉 oriented diamond films of good crystallinity can be deposited on adamantane-coated sapphire substrates. Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy at the diamond/sapphire interface shows that diamond can be directly synthesized on sapphire without any interlayer.