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.

Electron field emission from polycrystalline diamond films has been investigated. Electron emission was measured locally at randomly chosen point on a diamond film fabricated by a microwave plasma chemical deposition method. In the original film, there were some points with a large emission current where flaws were found after the measurements, some points with a small and stable emission current without any flaw, and the other points with no emission. At the point of no emission, the film was electrically broken down by applying a high voltage. After the intentional breaking down, a small and stable emission always appeared there with no flaw. The maximum emission current extracted from an emission site was usually 1µA with no structural flaw found after the measurements. By using a simple model of emission site consisting of a core conductor embedded in insulator, the limitation of emission current is estimated from heating by the current and heat transfer to the insulator.

Micro-tribology is a key technology in micro-machine. Atomic-scale wear and friction fluctuations degrade the performance of micro-machines. New wear-resistant, low friction materials should be useful in reducing micro- and macro-tribological wear and friction fluctuations. Our investigation of the frictional characteristics of polished CVD diamond films by FFM (friction force microscope), AFM (atomic force microscope) and conventional reciprocating tribometer and trial micro processing of diamond produced three main results. First, the friction coefficient of diamond film increases rapidly with decreasing load in the micro-load region. This is partially due to the surface tension of adsorbed water on the surface under high humidity. In the macro-load region also, the friction coefficient increases with decreasing load, but, in this case it is due to elastic deformation. The second result is that diamond film has excellent wear resistance in the micro-load region compared with silicon and diamond-like carbon (DLC) film. Finally, a micro-diamond gear and diamond shaft were fabricated by laser machining and thermo-chemical etching, and then assembled.