Diamond thin films and carbon nanostructures

In the laboratory of Diamond thin films and carbon nanostructures we have achieved a technological progress in the fabrication of diamond nanostructures. Diamond nanorods and/or nano-needles are fabrucated by dry plasma etching using a metal mask (Fig. 1). All these geometrically ordered nano-patterns suddenly found applications in multidisciplinary scientific fields like a sensing part in chemical sensors (phosgene gas sensor) or realization of artificial substrates for regenerative medicine. In addition, collected experimental knowledge in the field of plasma etching opened new areas as realization for FET transistor of channels, formation of optical resonators and/or waveguides, and others.

A. Kromka et al., Diamond & Relat. Mater.

Fig. 1: SEM images of tress of diamond nanorods in a top view (left) and angled view at 45° (right). Nanocrystalline diamond layer was etched by the dry plasma process in capacitively coupled plasma. As the masking material were used Ni nanoparticles in size from 20 to 50 nm.