Diamond surfaces polished both mechanically and manually; an atomic force microscopy (AFM) study

Diamond surfaces that are polished both mechanically and manually have been studied using atomic force microscopy and compared with optical micrographs obtained within the Nomarski interference mode. The extra gentle manual polishing which follows the mechanical polishing was developed to produce much smoother, well characterized and flat diamond surfaces than those prepared through mechanical polishing only. Both the AFM and optical micrographs showed the manually polished diamond surfaces being smoother and also exhibiting lower roughness parameters than those polished mechanically only. Annealing the surfaces to 250 °C did not show any noticeable changes in the surface roughnesses, but a 750 °C vacuum-anneal did show some differences that were attributed to possible surface etching through the desorption of the surface-bonded species.