Investigation of surface and sub‐surface damage in high quality synthetic diamonds by X‐ray reflectivity and grazing incidence in‐plane diffraction

High quality single-crystal synthetic diamond is the most suitable material for selected X-ray optical applications in the latest generation X-ray light sources. Excellent heat handling properties, as well as low absorption, coupled with high perfection in the crystal bulk and very good surface quality, are crucial for such applications. In recent years, some progress has been made in the fields of surface treatments and growth techniques. Conventional scaife polishing is largely ineffective on the diamond (111) surface. To overcome this disadvantage, one possibility is to use the Hot Metal polishing technique. An investigation of surface and sub-surface damage of Hot Metal polished and cleaved surfaces, has been carried out using depth-sensitive non-destructive X-ray techniques. The near surface crystalline quality was studied as a function of depth using in-plane grazing incidence X-ray diffraction. Additionally, X-ray reflectivity was used to investigate the density, thickness and roughness of near-surface layers. The measurements enable us to estimate the thickness of the affected sub-surface layer.