Effective Stress Reduction in Diamond Films on Alumina byCarbon Ion Implantation

We show the effective stress reduction in diamond films by implanting carbon ions into alumina substrates prior to the diamond deposition. Residual stresses in the films are evaluated by Raman spectroscopy and a more reliable method for stress determination is presented for the quantitative measurement of stress evolution. It is found that compressive stresses in the diamond films can be partly offset by the compressive stresses in the alumina substrates, which are caused by the ion pre-implantation. At the same time, the difference between the offset by the pre-stressed substrates and the total stress reduction indicates that some other mechanisms are also active.