DIAMOND GROWTH ON A (100)-TYPE STEP

Recent measurements with scanning tunneling microscopes and atomic force microscopes show that diamonds grown with the chemical vapor deposition process are covered with steps, kinks, defects, and reconstructions. In the present work we model growth at a step site with (100) character. The model is a modified version of a previous mechanism which has been highly successful in predicting growth rates under a wide range of experimental conditions. Thus, it could serve as a valuable practical tool for predicting diamond growth rates in systems which have not previously been studied experimentally.