Plasma-assisted atomic layer etching of single-crystal diamond

Applications of near-surface nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond are often limited by surface defects created during processing. Understanding and controlling plasma-induced surface damage is important for preserving the optical and spin properties of diamond NV centers. We report molecular dynamics simulations of a novel form of plasma-aided atomic layer etching of diamond. In this proposed scheme, the initial surface modification step consists of Ar⁺ ion bombardment. This creates an amorphous layer at the surface, the thickness of which is controlled by the ion energy. Amorphization is known to help smooth the surface, at least locally, and would also serve to sputter clean an initially contaminated surface. A second step impacts the amorphous carbon layer with O+ between about 1 and 5 eV. Simulations show that this energy range will remove the amorphous carbon but will not etch the underlying diamond. Though this energy range is not trivial to achieve in a conventional low-temperature plasma, potential methods for creating these low-energy O⁺ ions are discussed. In addition to a-C etching, the O⁺ impacts are predicted to remove any isolated (100) diamond terraces by selectively attacking the edges of the terraces. The proposed atomic layer etching (ALE) approach reverses the conventional ALE sequence in which the surface modification step is usually chemical modification (oxidation in this case), followed by a removal step using Ar+ impacts. This plasma ALE procedure is predicted to create a diamond surface that is atomically flat and defect free.