Low-stress diamond films deposited on stainless steel by a two-step dropped power process in chemical vapor deposition

Abstract A continuous low-stress diamond film has been prepared on stainless steel by a novel two-step dropped power process using a Cr/CrN/CrTiAlN film as an interlayer. After the interlayer was deposited on the stainless steel, isolated diamond particles were firstly prepared under high power of 1800 W for 10 min in CVD, which has low stress, releasing most of thermal stress. Then, the low power of 1500 W was adopted to form continuous diamond films. The stress is obviously lower than that of the continuous diamond film deposited only in the first CVD process, indicating that the two-step dropped power process surely decreases the internal stress of the film. The blocky microstructure on sandblasted stainless steel is beneficial to releases the stress. And the existence of very small amount of pores in the diamond film also benefits the stress releasing.