RT journal article
T1 Smart Cut Transfer of Wide-Bandgap Materials: The Case of Diamond
A1 Widiez, Julie
A1 Chrétien, Jérémie
A1 Masante, Cédric
A1 Gilles, Pierrick
A1 Piñero Charlo, José Carlos
A1 Milesi, Frédéric
A1 Fernández de los Reyes, Daniel
A1 Lloret Vieira, Fernando Manuel
A1 Colonel, Lucas
A1 Mazen, Frédéric
A1 Araújo Gay, Daniel
A1 Le Van Jodin, Lucie
A2 Ciencia de los Materiales e Ingeniería Metalúrgica y Química Inorgánica
A2 Didáctica
A2 Física Aplicada
K1 bonding
K1 diamond
K1 fracture
K1 graphitization
K1 ion implantation
K1 Smart Cut
AB Diamond exhibits a unique combination of exceptional properties, making it a highly attractive material for advanced technologies. Yet, these outstanding characteristics come at a cost: Diamond remains difficult to fabricate and is not readily available in large formats. In this context, the well-known Smart Cut layer transfer process—based on ion implantation and annealing—has been adapted for the first time to diamond. Turning a limitation into an advantage, the metastable nature of diamond allows for reducing the thermal budget required for cleavage. By finely tuning the implantation conditions, a buried sp2-rich layer can be created to serve as a fracture plane. Using this method, we successfully transfer an ~800-nm-thick diamond film onto a silicon substrate via metal bonding. After plasma etching of the residual sp2-rich layer, the transferred diamond preserves good crystalline quality, as confirmed by transmission electronic microscopy (TEM), electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), nanobeam diffraction, and Raman spectroscopy. While some implantation-induced point defects remain, they may be mitigated by a post-transfer annealing step. These results show that Smart Cut can be extended to ultrahard and chemically inert materials like diamond. This opens new perspectives for cost-effective, epi-ready diamond substrates on engineered hosts, paving the way for future high-performance electronics and quantum technologies.
PB John Wiley and Sons Inc
SN 1862-6319
YR 2025
FD 2025-11
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10498/39590
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10498/39590
LA eng
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Cádiz
RD 05-nov-2026