2018/02/25 by Michel Challier, Selda Sonuşen, Challier, Michel +17 · 1 citation
Materials Science · Engineering · #Diamond and Carbon-based Materials Research #Advanced Surface Polishing Techniques #Electrohydrodynamics and Fluid Dynamics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1802.08971
Many promising applications of single crystal diamond and its color centers\nas sensor platform and in photonics require free-standing membranes with a\nthickness ranging from several micrometers to the few 100 nm range. In this\nwork, we present an approach to conveniently fabricate such thin membranes with\nup to about one millimeter in size. We use commercially available diamond\nplates (thickness 50 \μm) in an inductively coupled reactive ion etching\nprocess which is based on argon, oxygen and SF6. We thus avoid using toxic,\ncorrosive feed gases and add an alternative to previously presented recipes\ninvolving chlorine-based etching steps. Our membranes are smooth (RMS roughness\n<1 nm) and show moderate thickness variation (central part: <1 \μm over\n\≈ ,200x200 \μm2). Due to an improved etch mask geometry, our\nmembranes stay reliably attached to the diamond plate in our chlorine-based as\nwell as SF6-based processes. Our results thus open the route towards higher\nreliability in diamond device fabrication and up-scaling.\n