The x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy C 1s diamond peak of chemical vapour deposition diamond from a sharp interfacial structure

While the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy is an excellent technique for the characterisation of chemical vapour deposition diamond thin films, previous analyses of the diamond C 1s peak have yielded a range of binding energies. The presence of an intermediate layer, the incorporation of materials other than diamond such as Si, and defect clusters in the diamond matrix could indeed shift the diamond C 1s position. In this work, diamond is deposited using the standard hot filament technique on [alpha]-(0001) sapphire substrates. In addition to the absence of an intermediate layer, there is virtually no sp2 carbon material in the formation of diamond as evidenced from Raman spectroscopy and Auger electron spectroscopy. The C 1s diamond peak is observed at 283.3 eV.