Investigation of the low angle grain boundaries in highly oriented diamond films via transmission electron microscopy

Abstract

Highly oriented diamond thin films grown on silicon via microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition were examined by transmission electron microscopy. In the plan view, defects appearing at the grain boundary were easily observed. (100) faceted grains that appeared to have coalesced were connected at their interfaces by dislocations characteristic of a low angle grain boundary. From Burgers vector calculations and electron diffraction patterns, the azimuthal rotation between grains was measured to be between 0 and 6°. The defect densities of these films are compared to reports from (100) textured randomly oriented films, and the relative improvement due to the reduction of misorientation and grain boundary angles is discussed.