High‐quality homoepitaxial diamond films having large terrace width have been successfully grown on (001) diamond substrates. Schottky contact properties as well as the surface morphology and the film crystallinity of the deposited films were characterized in order to examine a potential for electronic applications. It is found that the diamond films are covered with macroscopic steps running parallel to [110] direction and have atomically flat surfaces with 2×1 and 1×2 double‐domain structure. Detailed analysis of the atomic force microscope image for the atomically flat region indicates that the terrace width for double atomic steps is around 50 nm, suggesting that the migration length of precursors under present condition is much longer than that previously reported. The current–voltage characteristics of Al–Schottky contacts to these diamond films show excellent rectification properties. ©1996 American Institute of Physics.