ORIENTED CUBIC NUCLEATIONS AND LOCAL EPITAXY DURING DIAMOND GROWTH ON SILICON (100) SUBSTRATES

Clusters of uniform-sized oriented cubic nucleations (OCNs) about 1-2 μm and local epitaxy crystals (LECs) of 120×150 μm2 on silicon {100} have been obtained by pretreating the substrate in situ followed by a typical diamond growth process with a microwave plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition approach. The observations made under the scanning electron microscope reveal that the OCNs are not only oriented to one another, but also to the highly faceted LECs at an angle 45° off of the silicon substrate cleavage plane. The x-ray diffraction data show {400} dominant diamond.