Raman and photoluminescence spectra of indented cubic boron nitride and polycrystalline cubic boron nitride

Abstract

Abstract The use of Raman spectroscopy, and in particular Raman line shifts, to measure stress in diamond and nitrides such as gallium nitride (GaN), is well known. In both diamond and GaN the application is principally to study stresses in thin films and at the substrate–thin film interface. Stresses in polycrystalline diamond composites have also been measured by this method. Typically stresses of the order of GPa can be determined with a spatial resolution of a few micrometers. In this paper, Raman spectra of indentations on cubic boron nitride (cBN) crystals and polycrystalline cubic boron nitride (PcBN) composites are presented. Shifts of the cBN Raman lines from their unstressed positions quantify the residual stresses in the boron nitride due to the deformation brought about by the indentation. Making use of the measured coefficient of shift of 3.39 cm−1/GPa for the transverse optical Raman peak, these are of the order of 1 GPa. These measurements illustrate, for the first time, the use of Raman spectroscopy to study residual stresses in boron nitride. Plastic deformation is usually associated with the creation of vacancies. To investigate the possible presence of vacancy defects and vacancy-related defects, the indented boron nitride samples were also studied with photoluminescence spectroscopy.