Heteroepitaxial Nucleation of Diamond

ABSTRACTThe heteroepitaxial nucleation and eventual growth of large area single crystal diamond films has long eluded researchers interested in tapping it's many enabling properties, specifically in the field of active electronics. The uncertainty surrounding the diamond nucleation mechanism(s) and corresponding inability to carefully control this process are often blamed for the difficulty in achieving true heteroepitaxial growth. Biasenhanced nucleation (BEN) has been shown to provide in-situ control of the nucleation process. Subsequent advancements in both nucleation and deposition stages has resulted in highly oriented diamond films, approaching single crystal quality yet still plagued by arrays of medium to low angle grain boundaries that can degrade the electronic transport properties. To further improve upon these results and achieve large area, single crystal films it is believed that development must focus on the more fundamental problems of diamond nucleation. This paper presents a review of recent progress pertaining to the bias-enhanced process and focuses on data specific to the epitaxial nucleation dilemma.