Press releases
Please quote Nature Materials as the source of these items.
June 2003
Diamond debuts as true semiconductor
To an engineer, diamond is more than a gemstone: it is also a promising semiconductor with exceptional physical, chemical and electronic properties. But to convert diamond into a true semiconductor, impurities need to be added to alter its conductivity. In the July issue of Nature Materials, Jacques Chevallier and colleagues report the discovery of an impurity that generates the right sort of conductivity at room temperature.
Until now, the fabrication of diamond-based electronic devices had been limited by the lack of a suitable electron donor. But Chevallier and colleagues observe high electron conductivity in boron-doped diamond layers grown by chemical vapour deposition, and which had been exposed to deuterium plasma. The electron donor in this case seems to be a deuterium-boron complex.
Apart from its other excellent properties, diamond is chemically inert and biocompatible, making it attractive for so many applications, from biosensors to light-emitting devices. This latest discovery, combined with recent progress in growing highly pure synthetic diamond, makes the future for diamond look very bright indeed.
Shallow donors with high n-type electrical conductivity in homoepitaxial deuterated boron-doped diamond layers pp482-486
Zéphirin Teukam, Jacques Chevallier, Cécile Saguy, Rafi Kalish, Dominique Ballutaud, Michel Barbé, François Jomard, Annie Tromson-carli, Catherine Cytermann, James E. Butler, Mathieu Bernard, Céline Baron and Alain Deneuville
Published online: 22 June 2003 | doi 10.1038/nmat929
