CVD diamond films for SOI technologies

Diamond films is an interesting material for silicon-on-insulator technologies due to a unique combination of properties that can enhance to electronic device performance. Current CVD techniques for diamond growth allow the production of diamond layers with a thickness from less than I micron to a few mm on Si substrates of large area. As the direct diamond-to-silicon bonding requires high temperature (> 1150 degrees C) and still is problematic, the use of a Si substrate as the device layer after diamond deposition could be an alternative. No dramatic degradation of silicon after diamond deposition at 750 degrees C by microwave plasma assisted CVD is found as revealed from resistivity, X-ray diffraction and acoustic phonon scattering measurements. Further studies of electronic proper-ties of the diamond-coated Si are required to evaluate the feasibility of Si-on-diamond (SOD) device fabrication.