Abstract
It is well known that many cracks almost constantly occur in diamond films grown on conventional insulating wafers (such as silica glass or sapphire chips). In the present study, we used SiO2/Si substrates instead of the conventional insulating wafers for diamond deposition, and the growth of diamond was performed in a microwave plasma–enhanced–chemical–vapor–deposition (MPECVD) system. It was confirmed that both crackless microcrystalline and crackless nanocrystalline diamond films can be successfully deposited on the insulating SiO2/Si substrates under various growth conditions, suggesting that SiO2/Si is a promising candidate for an insulating substrate in diamond growth. The reasons why the cracks can be effectively prevented on SiO2/Si substrates rather than on silica glass or sapphire wafers are well explained with respect to the thermal expansion theory.
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