Diamond film growth by HFCVD on Q-carbon seeded substrate

Abstract

While hot-filament assisted chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD) is a well-established technique to synthesize diamond thin films using microdiamond seeds, the quality of grown diamond thin films is often compromised due to the presence of contaminants, i.e. graphitic entities and the eroded tungsten filament remnants, at the film-substrate interface. Here, we present a novel approach to form high-quality, contamination-free diamond thin films with HFCVD using Q-carbon precursor. The Q-carbon is a metastable phase which is formed by nanosecond laser melting of amorphous carbon and rapid quenching from the superundercooled state and consists of ∼75% sp3 and rest sp2 hybridized carbon. Using Q-carbon seeds in HFCVD, we demonstrate the growth of polycrystalline diamond film with a clean interface without any tungsten filament impurities. With large-area vibrational Raman mode analysis, we also observe a significant reduction in the presence of overall graphitic entities in the diamond film. With the realization of such a high-quality interface, we present a pathway to fabricate significantly improved diamond coatings and solid-state devices.