Conversion of fullerenes to diamond
OwnerDieter M. Grueninventor
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Abstract
A method of forming synthetic diamond on a substrate is disclosed. The method involves providing a substrate surface covered with a fullerene or diamond coating, positioning a fullerene in an ionization source, creating a fullerene vapor, ionizing fullerene molecules, accelerating the fullerene ions to energies above 250 eV to form a fullerene ion beam, impinging the fullerene ion beam on the substrate surface and continuing these steps to obtain a diamond thickness on the substrate.
Claims4
A method of forming synthetic diamond on a coated substrate surface having an initial coating selected from the group consisting of fullerene and diamond comprising the step of:
- (a) supplying fullerenes to an ionization source;
- (b) creating a vapor of said fullerenes by heating said fullerenes in said ionization source in a vacuum chamber;
- (c) ionizing fullerene molecules in said vapor of fullerenes by at least one of the procedures of laser ablation, electron bombardment, electron attachment or photoionization to fullerene ions;
- (d) accelerating said fullerene ions to energies of about 250 eV to 2.5 keV to form a fullerene ion beam;
- (e) impinging said fullerene ion beam on said substrate surface and fragmenting said fullerene ions;
- and
- (f) continuing said steps (a)-(e) to grow a diamond film on said coated substrate surface.
A method of forming synthetic diamond on a substrate surface having an initial coating selected from the group consisting of fullerene and diamond comprising the steps of:
- (a) supplying fullerenes to an ionization source;
- (b) creating a vapor of said fullerenes from said fullerenes positioned in said ionization source;
- (c) ionizing fullerene molecules in said vapor of fullerenes to form fullerene ions;
- (d) accelerating said fullerene ions to energies of at least about 250 eV to form a fullerene ion beam;
- (d) impinging said fullerene ion beam on said coated substrate surface;
- and
- (f) continuing said steps (a)-(e) to obtain grow a diamond film on said coated substrate surface.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.