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Diamonds belong to the category of semiconductors: Boron and Phosphorus-alloyed diamonds may be used for high-strength electronics components with different levels of conductivity. Nitrogen-alloyed diamonds represent a sub-class of such semiconductors, but until recently their properties remained very poorly studied, including due to the technical difficulties or producing research prototypes of the quality sufficient for electronics applications. Such prototypes should be not only of sufficient size, but also homogeneous in terms of the Nitrogen concentration. This is necessary for using the Hall effect – when voltage arises due to applying the magnetic field perpendicular to the main direction of the electric current in the sample.
“We performed our measurements under sufficiently high temperatures (300–700 degrees Celsius) in the high-purity argon cover atmosphere. In general, the preparation and the studies of a series of unique big (5 carats) synthetic Nitrogen-alloyed diamond monocrystals represent a quite complex experiment of the international class”, the Scientific Communications Center of Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology is citing Sergey Bug, one of the authors of the study, the Associate Professor of the Department of Physics and Chemistry of Nano-Structures.
Eventually during the experiment, the researchers from the Institute of Technology of Ultra-Hard and New Carbon Materials and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology succeeded with measuring the dependency of resistivity, concentration and mobility of unbound electrons from the temperature of the Nitrogen-alloyed diamonds. The obtained data provided for significant enhancement of knowledge about the semi-conducting properties of both synthetic and natural diamonds.
“Diamonds represent a unique material known for thousands years. Any research in this sphere opening some knew knowledge about this traditional material will be instrumental for developing new electronic, optoelectronic and quantum devices. For example, our Japanese colleagues are already creating diodes, transistors and microcircuits using Nitrogen-alloyed diamonds, and in Russia light-emitting diodes and femtosecond lasers are being developed on the basis of Nitrogen vacancy optical centres in Nitrogen-alloyed diamonds”, the Scientific Communications Center of Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology is citing Sergey Bug.
