Publication Date:
2014-03-06
Description:
We investigated the formation of cubic boron nitride (c-BN) thin films on diamond (001) and (111) substrates by ion-beam-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The metastable c-BN (sp 3 -bonded BN) phase can be epitaxially grown as a result of the interplay between competitive phase formation and selective etching. We show that a proper adjustment of acceleration voltage for N 2 + and Ar + ions is a key to selectively discriminate non-sp 3 BN phases. At low acceleration voltage values, the sp 2 -bonded BN is dominantly formed, while at high acceleration voltages, etching dominates irrespective of the bonding characteristics of BN.
Print ISSN:
0003-6951
Electronic ISSN:
1077-3118
Topics:
Physics