Diamond is an excellent substrate for many sensing and electronic applications because of its outstanding stability in biological and aqueous environments. Micropatterning of different chemical functional groups onto the diamond surface is an attractive technique to produce organic templates for various microfabrication processes. We demonstrate that hydrogen-terminated surfaces of nanocrystalline diamond films can be directly photopatterned with organic molecules bearing an alkene (C=C) group. Two types of alkene molecules, trifluoroacetamide-protected 1-aminodec-1-ene and dodecene were photopatterned using a contact mask. Photochemical functionalization was confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy and infrared reflection-absorption spectroscopy measurements. Field emission scanning electron microscopy was used to directly visualize the patterns on diamond surfaces where functionalized and unfunctionalized regions could be distinguished. To understand the origins of this molecular contrast, we directly measured the energy distribution of electrons scattered from the surface. This measurement revealed that functionalized regions have different characteristic energy loss features.

We demonstrate the ability to directly pattern and image molecular monolayer on the diamond surface with a lateral resolution of <2 microns. This work shows that direct photopatterning is a promising technique for further microfabrication.