Papers Published

1. Wolter, S.D. and Stoner, B.R. and Glass, J.T., Effect of substrate material on bias-enhanced diamond nucleation, Diamond and Related Materials, vol. 3 no. 9 (1994), pp. 1188 - 1195 [0925-9635(94)90167-8] .
   (last updated on 2007/04/17)

   Abstract:
   Diamond has been deposited on polycrystalline copper substrates via bias-enhanced nucleation, a pre-treatment technique to promote nucleation in which a negative potential is applied to the substrate. The maximum nucleation density of the diamond on the copper substrates was approximately 1 × 10⁶ cm^-2. In contrast, typical nucleation densities of roughly 1 × 10¹¹ cm^-2 have been observed on silicon substrates, indicating that bias-enhanced nucleation is affected by the substrate material. Auger electron spectroscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy indicated the presence of a highly graphitic surface carbon on the copper, which was not detected on silicon. Also, deconvolution of the Cu 2p^3/2 peak and micro-Auger depth profiling revealed this surface carbon to be 5-10 angstrom thick. The thickness and form of this surface carbon remained constant despite increasing bias-enhanced nucleation times. This is believed to be related to the slight enhancement of diamond nuclei compared with silicon.

   Keywords:
   Synthetic diamonds;Substrates;Copper;Auger electron spectroscopy;Electron spectroscopy;Carbon;Silicon;Graphite;Composition effects;