Low Temperature Fabrication of Diamond Films with Nanocrystal Seeding

Well-faceted diamond films have heen fabricated at 200° C on the silicon substrate by the magnetoactive microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. The substrate was seeded with nanocrystal diamond about 5 nm in diameter synthesized by the explosion process. The nanocrystal seeding brought about the improvement in quality of the fabricated films and the decrease in the time required for diamond nucleation. It took about 5 h to seed the scratched Si substrate at temperatures below 300° C.