Synthesis and electrical characterization of boron-doped thin diamond films

Abstract

Patterned semiconducting polycrystalline diamond films have been synthesized by hot-filament CVD using in situ doping by pure boron powder. P-type conduction was confirmed by both Hall and Seebeck effects. The quality of deposited films, as determined by SEM and Raman spectroscopy, was unaffected by the doping. The resistivity and Hall mobility measured by the Van der Pauw method were in the range of 20–100 Ω cm and 2–32 cm2 V−1 s−1, respectively. The dopant activation energies, as computed from the resistivity versus temperature curves (up to 300 °C), were in the range of 0.38–0.30 eV corresponding to Hall concentration in the range of 9×1015–2×1017 cm−3 and boron concentration in the range of 1017–1021 cm−3. The estimated impurity concentration is consistent with SIMS results.