Coating of diamonds for detector application

We report on the development of processes for pretreatment, coating, and tempering of structured layers on diamond surfaces for detector applications. The different steps were developed and processed in close collaboration with the GSI detector laboratory and with feedback from the experiment. Beginning with thermal evaporation and electron beam evaporation we currently use magnetron sputtering as standard coating technique for diamonds in a system especially equipped for this purpose. The layers of choice are mostly chromium–gold or titanium–platinum–gold; sometimes also single layers of aluminum, copper or palladium. The application of the coated diamonds in a detector for the HADES-experiment is described.