Investigation of isolated chemical vapour deposited diamonds using STIM tomography

Abstract In order to understand the growth mechanisms of chemical vapour deposited (CVD) diamonds, and ultimately improve the quality of CVD diamond films, isolated crystals rather than polycrystalline films should be studied. In polycrystalline film, grain boundaries, overgrowth and secondary nucleation are sources of defects and nondiamond components, which reduce the quality of the films and hence drastically limit the commercial applications. Isolated diamond crystals were grown on the end of tungsten wire tips by Microwave Plasma CVD. In an attempt to study the nature of growth of crystals, STIM (scanning transmission ion microscopy) tomography was used to map density variations within the formed diamond particles.