Presentation Information

[23p-12E-5]Adatom structures on the clean diamond (001) surfaces observed with non-contact atomic force microscopy

〇(DC)RUNNAN ZHANG1, Yuuki Yasui1, Masahiro Fukuda2, Masahiko Ogura3, Toshiharu Makino3, Taisuke Ozaki2, Daisuke Takeuchi3, Yoshiaki Sugimoto1 (1.Dept. Adv. Mater. Sci., Univ. Tokyo, 2.ISSP, Univ. Tokyo, 3.AIST)

Keywords:

non-contact atomic force microscopy,diamond

Diamond films, toward wide gap semiconductor devices, require the epitaxial growth while such growth recipe is under development. The growth optimization is partly limited by the ambiguity in the growth process. The growth mechanism can be evaluated by investigating the surface structure after the growth. A previous report using the scanning tunneling microscopy demonstrated that the hydrogen etching, which is considered as a part of the growth process, affects to the resultant surface morphology [1]. A better spatial resolution of the non-contact atomic force microscopy (NC-AFM) may enable even deeper understanding on such growth process.
We investigated the surface of diamond (001) thin films in atomic resolution with the NC-AFM. The boron doped diamond films were synthesized with the chemical vapor deposition with the surface in the hydrogen termination.The clean diamond surface was prepared with additional annealing in a separate ultra-high vacuum chamber. NC-AFM measurements in atomic resolution revealed characteristic adatom structures, which represent the most stable configuration of atoms when they arrive at the seed crystal. The adatom configuration is also reproduced with the density-functional-theory calculations. In this presentation, we will discuss the surface structure of diamond (001) aiming at further insight into the growth of diamond films. We anticipate that the present results help to further improve the diamond growth procedures.