Abstract: Composites having a substrate, a diamond film, and a metal boride film disposed between the substrate and the diamond film, together with methods for producing the composites.

Abstract: Disclosed are compositions and methods for producing carbon-based films, for example, ultra smooth diamond nanostructured diamond films. Generally, the disclosed compositions can comprise a noble gas component, hydrogen, a carbon precursor, and nitrogen. Generally, the disclosed methods can comprise the steps of providing a mixture comprising a noble gas, hydrogen, a carbon precursor, and nitrogen, establishing a plasma comprising the mixture; and depositing carbon-containing species from the plasma onto the surface, thereby producing a film on the surface. Generally, the disclosed films exhibit superior average gain size, RMS surface roughness, hardness, relative diamond crystallinity, and surface adhesion. This abstract is intended as a scanning tool for purposes of searching in the particular art and is not intended to be limiting of the present invention.

Abstract: The present invention provides a new process to deposit well adhered ultra smooth diamond films on metals by adding nitrogen gas to the methane/hydrogen plasma created by a microwave discharge. Such diamond coating process is useful in tribological/wear resistant applications in bio-implants, machine tools, and magnetic recording industry.