Mechanism of bias-enhanced nucleation of diamond on Si

The nucleation of diamond on Si is enhanced for negative substrate bias of 200–250 V. We show that the ion flux is the critical factor causing the enhanced nucleation. The ion energy distribution has a maximum at about 80 eV, the optimum to subplant C ions into a-C. We propose that subplantation causes deposition of nanocrystalline graphitic C, and that diamond nucleates where the graphitic planes are locally oriented perpendicular to the surface. An atomic model is proposed that allows a matching of the diamond, graphite, and Si lattice.