LAUSR

Low defect smooth substrates are essential to achieve high quality diamond epitaxial growth and high performance devices. The optimization of the Ar/O 2/CF 4 reactive ion etching (RIE) plasma treatment for diamond substrate smoothing and its effectiveness to remove subsurface polishing damage are characterized. An O 2/CF 4 RIE process and the effect of different process parameters (inductively coupled plasma, platen power, and pressure) were initially examined. This process, however, still produced a detrimental effect to surface roughness, with etch pits across the surface of the sample. The addition of argon to the process achieved near-zero surface pit density and reduced roughness by 20%–44% after 6 and 10  μm etching. Iterative high-resolution X-ray diffraction measurements provided a nondestructive tool to examine the effectiveness of polishing damage removal and in this case reduced after removal of 6  μm of material from the surface of the diamond substrate with the smoothing treatment.Low defect smooth substrates are essential to achieve high quality diamond epitaxial growth and high performance devices. The optimization of the Ar/O 2/CF 4 reactive ion etching (RIE) plasma treatment for diamond substrate smoothing and its effectiveness to remove subsurface polishing damage are characterized. An O 2/CF 4 RIE process and the effect of different process parameters (inductively coupled plasma, platen power, and pressure) were initially examined. This process, however, still produced a detrimental effect to surface roughness, with etch pits across the surface of the sample. The addition of argon to the process achieved near-zero surface pit density and reduced roughness by 20%–44% after 6 and 10  μm etching. Iterative high-resolution X-ray diffraction measurements provided a nondestructive tool to examine the effectiveness of polishing damage removal and in this case reduced after removal of 6  μm of material from the surface of the diamond substrate with the smoothing treatment.