The nature of the acceptor centre in semiconducting diamond

UV Light Irradiation Effects in P-Doped Diamonds: Total Content Determination of Phosphorus Donors

Upon the UV light irradiation of single-crystal diamonds doped with phosphorus, several effects have been observed. The integral intensity of phosphorus lines in FTIR absorption spectra under UV radiation was increased. A saturation effect depending on the power of the laser radiation was demonstrated. Narrowing of the phosphorus lines, as well as the redistribution of the intensities in their doublets caused by the Jahn-Teller distortion of the donor ground state, was observed. It was found that these effects are associated with the decompensation of the phosphorus donors. An easy, fast, sensitive, and nondestructive, fully optical method for the determination of the total phosphorus donor's concentration in semiconducting diamonds, as well as its compensation ratio, was proposed.

Influence of B/N co-doping on electrical and photoluminescence properties of CVD grown homoepitaxial diamond films

Boron doped diamond (BDD) has great potential in electrical, and electrochemical sensing applications. The growth parameters, substrates, and synthesis method play a vital role in the preparation of semiconducting BDD to metallic BDD. Doping of other elements along with boron (B) into diamond demonstrated improved efficacy of B doping and exceptional properties. In the present study, B and nitrogen (N) co-doped diamond has been synthesized on single crystalline diamond (SCD) IIa and SCD Ib substrates in a microwave plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition process. The B/N co-doping into CVD diamond has been conducted at constant N flow of N/C ∼ 0.02 with three different B/C doping concentrations of B/C ∼ 2500 ppm, 5000 ppm, 7500 ppm. Atomic force microscopy topography depicted the flat and smooth surface with low surface roughness for low B doping, whereas surface features like hillock structures and un-epitaxial diamond crystals with high surface roughness were observed for high B doping concentrations. KPFM measurements revealed that the work function (4.74-4.94 eV) has not varied significantly for CVD diamond synthesized with different B/C concentrations. Raman spectroscopy measurements described the growth of high-quality diamond and photoluminescence studies revealed the formation of high-density nitrogen-vacancy centers in CVD diamond layers. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results confirmed the successful B doping and the increase in N doping with B doping concentration. The room temperature electrical resistance measurements of CVD diamond layers (B/C ∼ 7500 ppm) have shown the low resistance value ∼9.29 Ω for CVD diamond/SCD IIa, and the resistance value ∼16.55 Ω for CVD diamond/SCD Ib samples.

Rare-earth metal catalysts for high-pressure synthesis of rare diamonds

The combination of the unique properties of diamond and the prospects for its high-technology applications urges the search for new solvents–catalysts for the synthesis of diamonds with rare and unusual properties. Here we report the synthesis of diamond from melts of 15 rare-earth metals (REM) at 7.8 GPa and 1800–2100 °C. The boundary conditions for diamond crystallization and the optimal parameters for single crystal diamond synthesis are determined. Depending on the REM catalyst, diamond crystallizes in the form of cube–octahedrons, octahedrons and specific crystals bound by tetragon–trioctahedron and trigon–trioctahedron faces. The synthesized diamonds are nitrogen-free and belong to the rare type II, indicating that the rare-earth metals act as both solvent–catalysts and nitrogen getters. It is found that the REM catalysts enable synthesis of diamond doped with group IV elements with formation of impurity–vacancy color centers, promising for the emerging quantum technologies. Our study demonstrates a new field of application of rare-earth metals.

The occupied electronic structure of ultrathin boron doped diamond

Using angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy, we compare the electronic band structure of an ultrathin (1.8 nm) δ-layer of boron-doped diamond with a bulk-like boron doped diamond film (3 μm). Surprisingly, the measurements indicate that except for a small change in the effective mass, there is no significant difference between the electronic structure of these samples, irrespective of their physical dimensionality, except for a small modification of the effective mass. While this suggests that, at the current time, it is not possible to fabricate boron-doped diamond structures with quantum properties, it also means that nanoscale boron doped diamond structures can be fabricated which retain the classical electronic properties of bulk-doped diamond, without a need to consider the influence of quantum confinement.

Effect of Laser Ablation on Microwave Attenuation Properties of Diamond Films

Thermal conductivity is required for developing high-power microwave technology. Diamond has the highest thermal conductivity in nature. In this study, a diamond film was synthesized by microwave plasma chemical deposition, and then long and short conductive graphite fibers were introduced to the diamond films by laser ablation. The permittivity of the samples in the K-band was measured using the transmission/reflection method. The permittivity of diamond films with short graphite fibers increased. The increase in real part of permittivity can be attributed to electron polarization, and the increase in the imaginary part can be ascribed to both polarization and electrical conductivity. The diamond films with long graphite fibers exhibited a highly pronounced anisotropy for microwave. The calculation of microwave absorption shows that reflection loss values exceeding −10 dB can be obtained in the frequency range of 21.3–23.5 GHz when the graphite fiber length is 0.7 mm and the sample thickness is 2.5 mm. Therefore, diamond films can be developed into a microwave attenuation material with extremely high thermal conductivity.

Morphological Transition in Diamond Thin-Films Induced by Boron in a Microwave Plasma Deposition Process

The purpose of this study is to understand the basic mechanisms responsible for the synthesis of nanostructured diamond films in a microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition (MPCVD) process and to identify plasma chemistry suitable for controlling the morphology and electrical properties of deposited films. The nanostructured diamond films were synthesized by MPCVD on Ti-6Al-4V alloy substrates using H₂/CH₄/N₂ precursor gases and the plasma chemistry was monitored by the optical emission spectroscopy (OES). The synthesized thin-films were characterized by x-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy. The addition of B₂H₆ to the feedgas during MPCVD of diamond thin-films changes the crystal grain size from nanometer to micron scale. Nanostructured diamond films grown with H₂/CH₄/N₂ gases demonstrate a broad (111) Bragg x-ray diffraction peak (Full-Width at Half-Maximum (FWHM) = 0.93° 2θ), indicating a small grain size, whereas scans show a definite sharpening of the diamond (111) peak (FWHM = 0.30° 2θ) with the addition of boron. OES showed a decrease in CN (carbon–nitrogen) radical in the plasma with B₂H₆ addition to the gas mixture. Our study indicates that CN radical plays a critical role in the synthesis of nanostructured diamond films and suppression of CN radical by boron-addition in the plasma causes a morphological transition to microcrystalline diamond.

High-pressure synthesis and characterization of diamond from an Mg–Si–C system

High-pressure synthesis of silicon-doped diamond from the Mg–Si–C system is demonstrated. The effects of Si on the crystallization and spectroscopic characteristics of diamond are established.

Brown colour in natural diamond and interaction between the brown related and other colour-inducing defects

Absorption spectroscopy results on a range of type II diamonds are presented which enable the electronic states associated with them to be mapped out. High pressure, high temperature treatment of brown type IIa diamonds has enabled an activation energy for the removal of the brown colour of 8.0 ± 0.3 eV to be determined and this is consistent with expectations associated with the currently accepted vacancy cluster model for the defect. Theoretical calculations suggest that this defect will generate partially filled gap states about 1 eV above the valence band. Data on the photochromic behaviour of bands producing pink colour and their relation to brown colour are presented; these suggest that the pink bands are produced from two independent transitions with ground states close to each other just below the middle of the band gap. Compensation of neutral boron by charge transfer from states associated with brown colour is demonstrated via the correlated increase in neutral boron and decrease in brown colour on high pressure, high temperature treatment to remove the defects causing the brown colour.

The annealing of radiation damage in type Ia diamond

The kinetics of the recovery of radiation damage in type Ia diamond has been investigated using isothermal annealing at 600 °C. In diamonds having a reasonably homogeneous distribution of nitrogen the decay of the vacancy concentration with time can be approximately described by a single exponential. Previous investigations have identified 'fast' and 'slow' components in the annealing, and we show that the existence of more than one time constant is associated with inhomogeneous nitrogen concentrations. The measurements show further that, in order to obtain the oscillator strengths of nitrogen-vacancy centres, studies must be restricted to diamonds with moderately high nitrogen concentrations.

Origin of the metallic properties of heavily boron-doped superconducting diamond

The physical properties of lightly doped semiconductors are well described by electronic band-structure calculations and impurity energy levels. Such properties form the basis of present-day semiconductor technology. If the doping concentration n exceeds a critical value n(c), the system passes through an insulator-to-metal transition and exhibits metallic behaviour; this is widely accepted to occur as a consequence of the impurity levels merging to form energy bands. However, the electronic structure of semiconductors doped beyond n(c) have not been explored in detail. Therefore, the recent observation of superconductivity emerging near the insulator-to-metal transition in heavily boron-doped diamond has stimulated a discussion on the fundamental origin of the metallic states responsible for the superconductivity. Two approaches have been adopted for describing this metallic state: the introduction of charge carriers into either the impurity bands or the intrinsic diamond bands. Here we show experimentally that the doping-dependent occupied electronic structures are consistent with the diamond bands, indicating that holes in the diamond bands play an essential part in determining the metallic nature of the heavily boron-doped diamond superconductor. This supports the diamond band approach and related predictions, including the possibility of achieving dopant-induced superconductivity in silicon and germanium. It should also provide a foundation for the possible development of diamond-based devices.

Design of shallow donor levels in diamond by isovalent-donor coupling

Using the first-principles pseudopotential method, we have studied simultaneous isovalent and n-type doping in diamond. We show that Si induces fully occupied isovalent levels near the valence band maximum. The Si levels interact with N donor levels, making them much shallower. The donor transition energy level of the N + 4Si defect complexes is found to be 0.09 eV below the conduction band minimum, which is the shallowest level found thus far for this system. The binding energy of the N + 4Si complex is also large enough to insure its stability.

The optical and electronic properties of semiconducting diamond

In this paper I review the evidence that shows that the optical and electronic properties of semiconducting diamond can be understood in terms of boron acceptors partially compensated by deep donors. In natural semiconducting diamond, in which the total impurity concentration is less than 1 ppm, there is a lot of fine structure in the acceptor absorption spectrum that is not fully understood, and the electrical conductivity is primarily associated with the thermally activated excitation of holes from the acceptor ground state to the valence band. Some of the problems regarding the analysis of Hall effect data in this material are discussed, including the temperature dependences of the scattering mechanisms, of the contribution from the split-off valence band and of the population of excited states. There are no adequate theoretical descriptions of any of these processes, and this leads to some uncertainties in the values of the parameters derived from the temperature dependence of the Hall coefficient. For boron-doped synthetic diamond, and thin film diamond grown by chemical vapour deposition (CVD), the defect concentrations are generally much higher, and much more inhomogeneous, than in natural semiconducting diamond. This results in a substantial broadening of the acceptor absorption spectrum and the electronic properties are greatly modified by increasing contributions from impurity band conduction as the acceptor concentrations are increased, leading to very low mobility values. For both poly crystalline and single crystal homoepitaxial CVD diamond, measurements of the electrical properties can be completely invalidated by the presence of a surface layer of non-diamond carbon.