Preferentially oriented growth of diamond films on silicon with nickel interlayer

A multistep deposition technique is developed to produce highly oriented diamond films by hot filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD) on Si (111) substrates. The orientation is produced by use of a thin, 5–20 nm, Ni interlayer. Annealing studies demonstrate diffusion of Ni into Si to form nickel silicides with crystal structure depending on temperature. The HFCVD diamond film with Ni interlayer results in reduced non-diamond carbon, low surface roughness, high diamond crystal quality, and increased texturing relative to growth on bare silicon wafers. X-ray diffraction results show that the diamond film grown with 10 nm Ni interlayer yielded 92.5% of the diamond grains oriented along the (110) crystal planes with ~ 2.5 µm thickness and large average grain size ~ 1.45 µm based on scanning electron microscopy. Texture is also observed to develop for ~ 300 nm thick diamond films with ~ 89.0% of the grains oriented along the (110) crystal plane direction. These results are significantly better than diamond grown on Si (111) without Ni layer with the same HFCVD conditions. The oriented growth of diamond film on Ni interlayers is explained by a proposed model wherein the nano-diamond seeds becoming oriented relative to the β 1 -Ni 3 Si that forms during the diamond nucleation period. The model also explains the silicidation and diamond growth processes. Article Highlights High quality diamond film with minimum surface roughness and ~93% oriented grains along (110) crystallographic direction is grown on Si substrate using a thin 5 to 20 nm nickel layer. A detailed report on the formation of different phases of nickel silicide, its stability with different temperature, and its role for diamond film texturing at HFCVD growth condition is presented. A diamond growth model on Si substrate with Ni interlayer to grow high quality-oriented diamond film is established.