Diamond seeding process for the heterogenous integration of high quality diamond on semiconductors
type: CreativeWork
description: Diamond thin films grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) have a wide band gap, high hardness, chemical inertness, and high thermal conductivity, making them an attractive material for a wide range of applications. Due to high surface energy and low sticking probability of diamond, it is difficult to grow thick coalesced diamond films on non-diamond substrates. To deposit diamond film with acceptable surface roughness, desired grain size, and other properties, nucleation enhancement steps through the diamond seeding process are generally required. In this work, an effort is made to improve seeding density, nucleation process, growth kinetics, film morphology, quality as well as material thermal properties of diamond film on different semiconductors. The growth of high-quality diamond on silicon as well as III-Nitrides were achieved through a series of experiments and characterization in various steps of the process. The first and foremost experiments were conducted to improve the diamond seeding density on silicon and III-Nitride semiconductors. An innovative approach is developed to disperse dense nano-diamond particles by electrostatic van der Waals bonding between the oxygen terminated diamond nanoparticles and a cationic polymer. Then, a systematic study is reported of the effects of nano-diamond seeding densities 4×108, 8×1010 and 2×1012 cm-2 on silicon wafers on the growth, quality, and morphology of diamond films from sparse to dense range. The growth dynamics, morphology and quality of diamond were found to depend upon the change in seeding density. Diamond crystals were found to develop three dimensionally via Volmer-Weber (VW) growth into large grains with low seeding density. The transition from VW conditions to van der Drift mode (mostly one dimensional) were found with increasing seeding density on the sample. Diamond crystal quality is found to improve both in the near interface region as well as the growth surface with thickness, at a given seed den…
abstract: Diamond thin films grown by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) have a wide band gap, high hardness, chemical inertness, and high thermal conductivity, making them an attractive material for a wide range of applications. Due to high surface energy and low sticking probability of diamond, it is difficult to grow thick coalesced diamond films on non-diamond substrates. To deposit diamond film with acceptable surface roughness, desired grain size, and other properties, nucleation enhancement steps through the diamond seeding process are generally required. In this work, an effort is made to improve seeding density, nucleation process, growth kinetics, film morphology, quality as well as material thermal properties of diamond film on different semiconductors. The growth of high-quality diamond on silicon as well as III-Nitrides were achieved through a series of experiments and characterization in various steps of the process. The first and foremost experiments were conducted to improve the diamond seeding density on silicon and III-Nitride semiconductors. An innovative approach is developed to disperse dense nano-diamond particles by electrostatic van der Waals bonding between the oxygen terminated diamond nanoparticles and a cationic polymer. Then, a systematic study is reported of the effects of nano-diamond seeding densities 4×108, 8×1010 and 2×1012 cm-2 on silicon wafers on the growth, quality, and morphology of diamond films from sparse to dense range. The growth dynamics, morphology and quality of diamond were found to depend upon the change in seeding density. Diamond crystals were found to develop three dimensionally via Volmer-Weber (VW) growth into large grains with low seeding density. The transition from VW conditions to van der Drift mode (mostly one dimensional) were found with increasing seeding density on the sample. Diamond crystal quality is found to improve both in the near interface region as well as the growth surface with thickness, at a given seed den…
author: K.C., Anupam
language: en
keywords: CVD, diamond growth, seeding, raman spectroscopy
identifier: K.C., A. (2022). Diamond seeding process for the heterogenous integration of high quality diamond on semiconductors [Doctoral dissertation, Texas State University].
date published: 2022-05
date modified: 2026-07-27T21:19:06Z
provider: Texas Digital Library
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Texas Digital Library

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/10877/15661