C. Baron

Conversion of p-type to n-type diamond by exposure to a deuterium plasma

The lack of a shallow donor in diamond with reasonable room temperature conductivity has been a major obstacle, until now, for the realization of many diamond based electronic devices. Most recently it has been shown that exposure of p-type (B doped) homoepitaxial diamond layers to a deuterium plasma can result in the formation of n-type diamond with a shallow donor state (Ea=0.34eV) and high room temperature mobility (430cm2∕Vs) [Z. Teukam et al., Nat. Mater. 2, 482 (2003); C. Saguy et al., Diamond Relat. Mater. 13, 700 (2004)]. Experimental results, based on the comparison of secondary ion mass spectrometry profiles of B and D and Hall effect measurements at different temperatures are presented. They confirm the previous speculation that some deuterium related complex is responsible for the donor activity in diamond. These donors are shown to be formed in a two-step process. First, deuterium diffuses into the entire B containing layer rather slowly, being trapped by the boron acceptors and passivating t...

Electron-beam-induced dissociation of B–D complexes in diamond

The diffusion of deuterium in boron-doped homoepitaxial diamond films leads to the passivation of boron acceptors via the formation of B–D complexes. In this letter, the stability of B–D pairs is investigated under the stress of a low-energy (10keV) electron-beam irradiation at low temperature (∼100K). The dissociation of the complexes is evidenced by cathodoluminescence spectroscopy and is shown to result in the reactivation of most acceptors. The dissociation yield per incident electron is found to be strongly dependent on the e-beam current, which suggests a dissociation involving a vibrational excitation of the complexes by hot electrons.

Some Recent Advances on the n-Type Doping of Diamond

The n-type doping of diamond with phosphorus suffers from defects reducing the electron mobilities and inducing some degree of compensation. In addition, the relatively high ionization energy (0.6 eV) of phosphorus severely limits the electrical activity of the dopants. Here, we present two recent advances of the n-type doping of diamond. One is based on the significant reduction of the compensation ratio of highly compensated phosphorus-doped diamond by thermal annealings. The second one presents the possibility of converting p-type boron-doped diamond into n-type by deuterium diffusion and formation of deuterium-related shallow donors with ionization energy of 0.33 eV.