Large area diamond selective nucleation based epitaxy

A uniform large area H₂ plasma can be generated by a magneto-activated microwave plasma chemical vapour deposition (CVD) system. This plasma has been employed, instead of the previously used argon beam, in the diamond selective nucleation based epitaxy (SENTAXY) technique as the irradiation beam to fabricate a large area SENTAXY diamond array which has high potential to make good use of CVD diamond in semiconducting and optical devices. By using this nucleation control technique, an investigation focusing on CVD diamond nucleation sites has also been carried out via an ultrahigh voltage transmission electron microscope. It has been found that diamond preferentially nucleates on the area of the substrate with a high density of defects.