Co-doping of CVD diamond with boron and sulfur

Boron is well-established as a p-type dopant in diamond, but attempts to find a viable n-type dopant remain unsuccessful. In 1999, sulfur was reported to give n-type conductivity. However, later measurements indicated that the samples contained boron and were p-type. Recently, we showed that diamond co-doped with sulfur and small quantities of boron shows n-type conductivity, which was established by Mott-Schottky analyses, thermoelectric effect, Hall measurements, scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS), and UV open-circuit photo-potential. At higher boron concentrations, a transition to p-type behavior is observed due to overcompensation. Experiments performed without boron in the feed gas or without residual boron in the reactor chamber showed no sulfur incorporation and no change in conductivity.; There is evidence that the excess sulfur concentration in the near-surface region is not stable. At room temperature and below, the activation energies range from 0.06 to 0.12 eV. Above 400K there is an irreversible loss in conductivity and the activation energy increases to approximately 1.3 eV. Additionally, we observed by SIMS that there exists a concentration gradient in sulfur with film depth. This sulfur concentration gradient is also observed in our electrical measurements. STS shows a decrease in conductivity with film depth and Hall effect measurements show both p-type and n-type coefficients for samples which are n-type in the near-surface region.; The flat-band potential obtained from the Mott-Schottky experiments is only 1 to 1.5 V more negative on the electrochemical scale than that for boron-doped diamond. This implies that the Fermi level is only 1 to 1.5 eV higher than the Fermi level in boron-doped diamond. This observation implies that the n-type conductivity is not by excitation of electrons to the conduction band, but by an alternate mechanism that occurs in the middle of the band gap. One such possibility is an acceptor impurity band. Electrons from individual donor states can be excited into this acceptor band where they are free to move. This mechanism would create n-type conductivity even if the Fermi level was low in the bandgap.