Depth profiles, surface damage and lattice location of boron/deuterium co-doped diamond

Ion-beam-analyses (IBA) on a boron doped plasma-deuterated single crystal diamond are reported. Such samples have been reported to show an as-yet unexplained (Nature Materials 2, 482 (2003)) conversion from p-type (when as grown-B doped) to n-type (when deuterated). The present results yield information on the degree of crystallinity and on the lattice location of the B and D in the sample. They show that the diamond epitaxy is good, that the location of the B (even after deuteration) is mostly substitutional. However, the deuterium is not aligned along the <100> crystallographic axis. The absolute concentrations of B and D indicate that the n-type conductivity is associated with a B-D_n complex with n ≥ 2, in agreement with earlier experiments and some theoretical models. A surface damage layer of about 2 nm following the plasma exposure is also reported.