Growth of two-inch free-standing heteroepitaxial diamond on Ir/YSZ/Si (001) substrates via laser-patterned templates

In this paper, 2-inch free-standing diamonds were prepared by using heteroepitaxy on composite Ir/YSZ/Si (001) substrates. To release stress, patterned templates were fabricated using laser etching after the initial growth of 50-nm-diamond. Then, the subsequent growth was completed on a patterned template. The full width at half maximum of the diamond (400) and (311) X-ray rocking curves were 313.5 and 359.3 arcsecs, respectively. Strong band-edge emission in the cathodoluminescence spectrum of the resulting diamond revealed excellent crystalline quality. Furthermore, the 2D mapping of Raman spectra was conducted on a $2 mm \times 2 mm$ area located at the center of the 2-inch sample with a thickness of $400 μm$. The result showed an average peak width of $2.85 \pm 0.36 cm^{-1}$ and residual stress of $-0.03 \pm 0.37 GPa$. The dislocation density, determined by counting etching pits generated from $ H_2/O_2$ plasma etching, was estimated to be around $2.2 \times 10^7 cm^{-2}$. These results evidence that the laser-patterned method can effectively release stress during the growth of large-size diamonds, offering a simpler and more cost-effective alternative to the traditional photolithography-patterned scheme.