Epitaxial Ir layers on SrTiO 3 as substrates for diamond nucleation: deposition of the films and modification in the CVD environment

Abstract

Iridium films on SrTiO3(001) have recently proven to be a superior substrate material for the heteroepitaxy of diamond thin films by chemical vapour deposition in the effort towards the realization of single crystal diamond films. In this paper we report on the growth and structural properties of iridium (Ir) films deposited by electron-beam evaporation on SrTiO3(001) surfaces varying the deposition temperature between 280 and 950°C. The films were studied by scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy and X-ray diffraction. At the highest temperature film growth proceeds via three-dimensional nucleation, coalescence and subsequent layer-by-layer growth. The resulting films show a cube-on-cube orientation relationship with the substrate and a minimum mosaic spread of 0.15°. Towards lower deposition temperatures the orientation spread increases only slightly down to ∼500°C while the surface roughness, after passing through a maximum at ∼860°C, decreases significantly. For the lowest temperatures (below 500°C) the mosaic spread rises accompanied by the occurrence of twins until the epitaxial order is lost. Plasma treatment in the diamond deposition reactor at high temperature (920°C) yields low nucleation densities and modifies the Ir surface. At the same time {111} facets show a significantly higher structural stability as compared with {001} facets. Nucleation at 700°C results in highly aligned diamond grains with low mosaic spread and a vanishing fraction of randomly oriented grains, proving the superior properties of Ir films on SrTiO3 for diamond nucleation as compared with pure silicon substrates.