Characterization of textured polycrystalline diamond by electron spin resonance spectroscopy

Electron spin resonance (ESR) is shown to be a useful and versatile technique for the detection and characterization of preferred orientation effects in polycrystalline diamond films. A nitrogen related center known as P1 is used for this purpose. The ESR signal coming from this center is composed of a central line and hyperfine satellite lines. It is found that crystallite disorientation causes a linewidth broadening of the satellite lines, which can thus be used to quantitatively characterize the diamond film texture. It is shown that the method is able to separate contributions of disorder induced by rotations of the crystallites around the growth direction from other contributions. The general conditions in which the method can be applied, and its applicability to other materials, are discussed.