Seeding substrates with diamond nanocrystals has been considered to be a promising nondestructive pretreatment method for growth of diamond films. However, its application is strongly impeded by the segregation of diamond nanocrystals on substrates. In the present study, we suggest a very simple but effective seeding way ("sandwich" (SW) seeding way) to prevent nanocrystals from segregation. By the SW seeding way, the diamond nanocrystals can be nearly uniformly dispersed on Si substrates with the areal density of the order of 108cm-2. On the nano-seeded Si substrates the continuous and homogeneous diamond films can be successfully fabricated using a microwave plasma enhanced chemical-vapor-deposition (MPECVD) equipment. The cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images reveal that compare with the diamond films grown on the Si substrates pretreated by the conventional scratching method, the films deposited on the nano-seeded Si substrates present a much flatter interfacial structure, suggesting that the SW seeding way can effectively reduce the interface coarseness.

A type of carbon nanoform (carbon nanowalls: CNWs) has been successfully deposited on both Ni wafers and Ni wires using dc plasma chemical-vapor-deposition (CVD) method. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Raman spectroscopy were used to characterize CNWs' microstructure. It is found that CNWs are well crystallized, and each CNW consists of several pieces of curved graphene sheets, presenting a quasi-two-dimensional geometry. The average length and width of CNWs are about 2-4µm, while their thickness is less than 7nm. Field emission measurement showed that such CNW films exhibited the excellent electron emission efficiency, comparable to the high-grade carbon nanotube (CNT) emitters. The threshold field defined as the field to obtained 1µA/cm2 is less than 1V/µm and the electrical field for 1mA/cm2 current density is only about 1.5V/µm. Moreover, the CNWs have stable emission behaviors, and we have successfully fabricated a kind of high-brightness lamps based on the CNW coated Ni wires.