Diamond Oddities and Unusual Structures

These images are unusual ones that we have seen over the past few years, normally when trying to grow diamond in a very non-standard way or on a strange substrate. Some of these images were one-offs, i.e. we couldn't reproduce them since the exact deposition conditions were not controlled well enough.

	'Feather-like' nano-crystalline diamond grown in a methane/Ar plasma.
	Secondary electron emission from the square (100) surfaces of a film dosed with N2. The (100) squares are shining brightly as they have a high NEA.
	The edge of a Si substrate showing the diamond growth changing from microcrystalline to nanocrystalline towards the centre of the sample.
	An isolated diamond 'ball' made from nanocrystalline diamond with microcrystalline crystallites embeded in it..
	Diamond 'celery' structures seen on the substrate surface after homoepitaxial growth by MWCVD.
	Close up of the diamond 'celery' structures.
	Rod-like structures left on a surface after diamond deposition.
	Broccolli-like diamond seen after H etching.
	Rod-like diamond seen after deposition.
	Spiky star-like diamond seen after deposition.
	Nanotubes, microtubes and 'spaghetti' seen after deposition.
	Carbon plates seen seen after deposition.
	Carbon plates and rods together.
	Diamond grown onto hairs of Ti/Fe that grew out of a lump of Ti/Fe in the HF reactor.
	Diamond grown onto alumina fibres. The diamond has grown as crystallites, and aligned platelets.
	Close-up of the platelets.
	A microcrystalline diamond film etched in hydrogen gas.
	Nanocrystalline diamond spheres nucleated as isolated islands.
	Nanocrystalline spheres nucleated or deposited on top of one another to form towers.
	Carbon nanotubes growing out of the surface of a CVD diamond film after it was etched in hydrogen.
	A waterdrop on a black diamond surface showing the superhydrophobic properties of the surface.

Diamond SEM Art

These are just artistic versions of some of our SEM pictures, made using false colour and image processing.