Process development begins with observing how the plasma, substrate, and film evolve during growth. The video at right shows a CVD diamond growth sequence and belongs with the process development discussion because it illustrates visible process progression rather than a finished product category.
For customer programs, this same mindset is applied to recipe development, thickness mapping, Raman review, thermal behavior, nucleation route, and scale-up decisions.
CVD diamond growth sequence showing visible process progression during microwave plasma deposition.
Process development is not only recipe tuning. For diamond-on-silicon, thermal substrates, detector films, and optical plates, Carat uses wafer-level metrology to connect growth conditions to thickness distribution and usable material area.
The example at right shows a 100 mm class wafer thickness map generated from nine measurement locations using a strict, discontinuity-preserving interpolation method. The analysis reported a 25.9 mg mass gain, 1.014 µm mean thickness, 0.899 µm minimum thickness, 1.166 µm maximum thickness, and 13.2% nonuniformity for a robust dataset with no invalid locations.
This type of mapping helps identify radial and azimuthal growth trends, compare process conditions, and decide whether the next development step should focus on plasma coupling, substrate temperature, gas chemistry, nucleation, or fixture geometry.
Representative CVD diamond wafer thickness map and analysis table. Wafer 258: mean thickness 1.014 µm, min 0.899 µm, max 1.166 µm, nonuniformity 13.2%, robust dataset.
Send substrate dimensions, target diamond thickness, required surface finish, application environment, and any acceptance criteria. Carat can help determine whether the proper next step is a sample coating, process development program, material supply discussion, or reactor configuration review.