Epitaxial Lateral Overgrowth of Wafer-Scale Heteroepitaxial Diamond for Quantum Applications

Wafer-scale heteroepitaxial diamond thin films demonstrate multiple advantages for a further development of integrated optical and quantum devices based on impurity-vacancy color centers. The main obstacle here is a high structural defect density characteristic for heteroepitaxial epilayers. In this work, technological methods of stress control, NV formation, and defect density reduction in diamond epilayers, which are based on principles of epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELO) are reported on. Herein, material and quantum properties of NV-doped diamond thin films obtained by patterned nucleation growth and by ELO of microstructured epilayers, are compared. It is demonstrated that a combination of both methods might have a significant potential for the wafer-scale production of heteroepitaxial diamond for quantum devices. High density of growth defects is one of the main obstacles hindering a wide use of heteroepitaxial wafer-scale diamond films for a fabrication of integrated optical and quantum devices. Herein, technological approaches of a defect density reduction, which are based on epitaxial lateral overgrowth, are reported on and quantum figure-of-merits for diamond films obtained by different methods are compared.image (c) 2023 WILEY-VCH GmbH