Manufacturing Considerations
Since materials with diamond or zinc blende structures are important for formation of wafers used in the fabrication of modern electronics, it is important to know that they present open, hexagonal ion channels when ion implantation is carried out from any of the <110> directions (that is, 45° from one of the cube edges). Their open structure also results in a volume reduction upon melting or amorphization, as is also seen in ice.
They display octahedral cleavage, which means that they have four planes—directions following the faces of the octahedron where there are fewer bonds and therefore points of structural weakness—along which single crystals can easily split, leaving smooth surfaces. Similarly, this lack of bonds can guide chemical etching of the right chemistry (i.e., potassium hydroxide solutions for Si) to produce pyramidal structures such as mesas, points, or etch pits, a useful technique for microelectromechanical systems.
Read more about this topic: Diamond Cubic