Interfaces between highly (001)-oriented diamond films and (001) Si substrates were investigated by means of high-resolution electron microscopy. It was found that hetero-epitaxially oriented grains, which exhibited a defined orientation relationship with respect to the substrate lattice, grew directly on the clean Si surface. Most of the grains had their base axes parallel, or almost (within a few degrees) parallel, to the base axes of Si. Grains with 14 or 70 rotations about a <110> axis were also observed. In the latter case, the lattice had a twin relationship with respect to that of ideally oriented non-rotated grains. In all cases, the interface structure was well-defined and the angular deviation of the 2 lattices was compensated by interface dislocations. These dislocations were either of 60 type, or were Lomer dislocations that formed via the reaction of 2 types of 60 dislocation. The observed orientations could be explained in terms of the near coincidence site lattice of the 2 materials.

C.L.Jia, K.Urban, X.Jiang: Physical Review B, 1995, 52[7], 5164-71