The excellent tribological performance of ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) makes this material a potential candidate for the fabrication of long endurance micro/nano-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS) that could involve contacting surfaces. In this work, UNCD and nitrogen incorporated UNCD (N-UNCD) microstructures have been produced and investigated, in order to analyze their intrinsic stress component. A solution for stress reduction is proposed: the application of a titanium stress-compensation coating seems to be an optimum route to obtain flat, free-standing N-UNCD films.
