Diamond on nanopatterned substrate

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11634834-B2
Application number	US-202117409916-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 24, 2021
Priority date	May 25, 2018
Publication date	Apr 25, 2023
Grant date	Apr 25, 2023

Abstract

A method for growing polycrystalline diamond films having engineered grain growth and microstructure. Grain growth of a polycrystalline diamond film on a substrate is manipulated by growing the diamond on a nanopatterned substrate having features on the order of the initial grain size of the diamond film. By growing the diamond on such nanopatterned substrates, the crystal texture of a polycrystalline diamond film can be engineered to favor the preferred <110> orientation texture, which in turn enhances the thermal conductivity of the diamond film.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for making a diamond structure, comprising the steps of:
providing a substrate having a plurality of engineered uniform nanopatterned features fabricated on an upper surface thereof, each of the engineered nanopatterned features having a predetermined top width of about 4 to about 400 nm and having a predetermined distance from a neighboring feature;
depositing a plurality of seed diamond crystals on an upper surface of the substrate; and
growing a polycrystalline diamond film from the seed diamond crystals, the polycrystalline diamond film being grown so as to conformally cover the nanopatterned feature on the substrate;
wherein the top width and distance between the nanopatterned features are engineered to cause initial diamond seed crystals deposited on the nanopatterned features to coalesce and grow in a vertical direction to produce the polycrystalline diamond film, the polycrystalline diamond film being dominated by grains having a <110> orientation texture that produces a predetermined increase in a thermal conductivity of the polycrystalline diamond film as compared to a polycrystalline diamond film grown on a flat substrate.

2. The method for making a diamond structure according to claim 1 , wherein the nanopatterned features comprise a plurality of rectangular trenches having a height of 47 nm, a top width of 60 nm, and a bottom width of 77 nm formed on the upper surface of the substrate.

3. The method for making a diamond structure according to claim 1 , wherein the nanopatterned features comprise a plurality of rectangular or circular pillars formed on the upper surface of the substrate.

4. The method for making a diamond structure according to claim 1 , wherein the nanopatterned features have a feature size of about 60 to about 400 nm in width.

5. The method for making a diamond structure according to claim 1 , wherein a size of the nanopatterned features is about the same as an initial grain size of the seed diamond crystals.

6. The method for making a diamond structure according to claim 5 , wherein the size of the seed diamond crystals and the size of the nanopatterned features is about 4 nm.

7. The method for making a diamond structure according to claim 1 , wherein the polycrystalline diamond film comprises initial diamond seed grains having an initial grain size of about 4 nm that have grown into grains having a grain size of about 100 to about 200 nm.

Assignees

• Us Gov Sec Navy

Inventors

• Hobart Karl D
• Feygelson Tatyana I
• Tadjer Marko J
• Anderson Travis J
• Koehler Andrew D
• Graham Jr Samuel
• Goorsky Mark
• Cheng Zhe
• Yates Luke
• Bai Tingyu
• Wang Yekan

Classifications

• H10W40/254

  Diamond · CPC title

• C23C16/045

  Coating cavities or hollow spaces, e.g. interior of tubes; Infiltration of porous substrates · CPC title

• C30B25/18

  characterised by the substrate · CPC title

• C30B25/186

  being specially pre-treated by, e.g. chemical or physical means · CPC title

• C30B29/04 Primary

  Diamond · CPC title