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Investigating point defects in irradiated boron-doped diamond films by temperature-dependent electrical properties and scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy

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Abstract

We report temperature-dependent electrical resistivity (or dc conductivity, sdc) down to 4 K for pristine and gamma-irradiated microwave plasma-assisted chemical vapor-deposited boron-doped diamond films with [B]/[C]gas = 4000 ppm to gain insights into the nature of conduction mechanism, distribution, and kinetics of point defects generated due to gamma irradiation prompted by the article [Gupta et al., J. Mater. Res.24, 1498 (2009)]. The pristine samples exhibit typical metallic conduction up to 50 K and with reduction in temperature to 25 K, the sdc decreases monotonically followed by saturation at 4 K, suggesting “disordered” metal or “localized” behavior. For irradiated films, continuous increasing resistivity with decreasing temperature demonstrates semiconducting behavior with thermal activation/hopping conduction phenomena. It is intriguing to propose that irradiation leads to substantial hydrogen redistribution leading to unexpected low-temperature resistivity behavior. Scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy helped to illustrate local grain and grain boundary effects.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, C.so Duca degli Abruzzi 24, Politecnico di Torino, Italy, 10129

    Sanju Gupta, Dario Daghero & Renato Gonnelli

  2. Missouri University Research Reactor, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri, 65211, USA

    Sanju Gupta & Farmer John

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  1. Sanju Gupta
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Correspondence to Sanju Gupta.

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Gupta, S., John, F., Daghero, D. et al. Investigating point defects in irradiated boron-doped diamond films by temperature-dependent electrical properties and scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. Journal of Materials Research 25, 444–457 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1557/JMR.2010.0064

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