Commercial developments of nano-crystalline diamond — Two prototypes as case studies

Novel technologies for synthesis of nano-crystalline diamond (NCD) enable industrial production allowing large area deposition on a variety of substrate materials – at reasonable price. New perspectives for future innovative products emerge demonstrated by two case studies in the field of micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) sensors (case a) and medical implant devices (case b).a) This study comes as a preliminary step towards the integration of NCD thin film membranes in gravimetric sensors with low detection limits. We investigate theoretically and experimentally the mass sensing characteristics of composite thin Film Bulk Acoustic Resonator (FBAR) as a function of the side exposed to a mass perturbation.b) The aim of this study was to demonstrate the influence of different surface terminations of NCD on surface potentials and subsequently its influence on in vivo connective tissue healing. NCD-coated implants were evaluated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM)-surface potential measurements. After in vivo integration of the NCD-membranes into the subdermal layer of Wistar rats and subsequent histological evaluation it was demonstrated that the number of cells increased significantly at the O-terminated NCD and the scar tissue formed was less tight. Thus, a promising technique for controlling connective tissue adhesion in vivo is presented.