Article abstract
Nature Materials 2, 482 - 486 (2003)
doi:10.1038/nmat929
Subject Categories: Semiconductors | Design synthesis and processing
Shallow donors with high n-type electrical conductivity in homoepitaxial deuterated boron-doped diamond layers
Zéphirin Teukam1, Jacques Chevallier1, Cécile Saguy2, Rafi Kalish2, Dominique Ballutaud1, Michel Barbé1, François Jomard1, Annie Tromson-Carli1, Catherine Cytermann2, James E. Butler3, Mathieu Bernard4, Céline Baron4 and Alain Deneuville4
Abstract
Diamond is a unique semiconductor for the fabrication of electronic
and opto-electronic devices because of its exceptional physical and chemical
properties. However, a serious obstacle to the realization of diamond-based
devices is the lack of n-type diamond with satisfactory electrical properties.
Here we show that high-conductivity n-type diamond can be achieved by
deuteration of particularly selected homo-epitaxially grown (100) boron-doped
diamond layers. Deuterium diffusion through the entire boron-doped layer leads
to the passivation of the boron acceptors and to the conversion from highly
p-type to n-type conductivity due to the formation of shallow donors with
ionization energy of 0.23 eV. Electrical conductivities as high as 2
-1 cm-1 with electron
mobilities of the order of a few hundred cm2
V-1 s-1 are measured at 300 K for
samples with electron concentrations of several 1016
cm-3. The formation and break-up of deuterium-related
complexes, due to some excess deuterium in the deuterated layer, seem to be
responsible for the reversible p- to n-type conversion. To the best of our
knowledge, this is the first time such an effect has been observed in an
elemental semiconductor.
- Laboratoire de Physique des Solides et de Cristallogénèse, UMR CNRS 8635, 1 place A.Briand, 92195 Meudon Cedex, France
- Physics Department and Solid State Institute, Technion, Haifa 32000, Israel
- Naval Research Laboratory, Code 6174, Washington, DC 20375, USA
- Laboratoire d'Etudes des Propriétés Electroniques des Solides, CNRS B.P.166, 38042 Grenoble Cedex 09, France
Correspondence to: Jacques Chevallier1 e-mail: jacques.chevallier@cnrs-bellevue.fr
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