Deposition of high quality diamond film on refractory nitride

摘要

An adhering, continuous diamond film of optical or semiconductor quality is deposited on a substrate by forming on the substrate a layer of a nitride and then depositing diamond on the nitride without mechanical treatment or seeding of the substrate or the nitride. A substrate of silicon or silicon carbide has been used by depositing a layer of silicon dioxide directly on the substrate and then directly depositing the nitride layer on the silicon dioxide. A polycrystalline diamond film has been deposited by heating the substrate and nitride layer in a vacuum chamber containing a microwave activated mixture of hydrogen and a gas including carbon with the nitride being a refractory nitride to withstand the temperature at which the diamond is deposited. Deposition of the diamond is facilitated by adding oxygen to the mixture after a sufficient thickness of diamond is deposited to protect the nitride layer from oxidation.