Detonation nanodiamond as building blocks for fabrication of densely packed arrays of diamond nanowhiskers

The fabrication of diamond nanowhiskers obtained by room temperature H-etching of diamond samples formed by self-assembled detonation nanodiamond grains is reported. Arrays of vertically aligned quasi-1D structures (up to 1 m in height) can be reproducibly obtained using a dual mode plasma PA-CVD technique. The morphology and structure of the diamond deposits were investigated by means of FE-SEM, micro-Raman and electron diffraction. Overall, it is found that the etching process induced by H ions substantially lowers the resistivity of the material but does not modify the lattice parameters of the diamond phas