Crystalline Defects Induced during MPCVD Lateral Homoepitaxial Diamond Growth.

The development of new power devices taking full advantage of the potential of diamond has prompted the design of innovative 3D structures. This implies the overgrowth towards various crystallographic orientations. To understand the consequences of such growth geometries on the defects generation, a Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) study of overgrown, mesa-patterned, homoepitaxial, microwave-plasma-enhanced, chemical vapor deposition (MPCVD) diamond is presented.

Boron-Doping Proximity Effects on Dislocation Generation during Non-Planar MPCVD Homoepitaxial Diamond Growth.

Epitaxial lateral growth will be required if complex diamond-based device architecture, such as, for example, Metal-oxide-semiconductor Field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) or epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELO) substrates, need to be developed for high-power applications. To this end, undoped and doped non-planar homoepitaxial diamond were overgrown on (001)-oriented diamond-patterned substrates. Defects induced by both the heavy boron doping and three-dimensional (3D) growth were studied by transmission electron microscopy (TEM).

Nonadiabatic Kohn Anomaly in Heavily Boron-Doped Diamond.

We report evidence of a nonadiabatic Kohn anomaly in boron-doped diamond, using a joint theoretical and experimental analysis of the phonon dispersion relations. We demonstrate that standard calculations of phonons using density-functional perturbation theory are unable to reproduce the dispersion relations of the high-energy phonons measured by high-resolution inelastic x-ray scattering. On the contrary, by taking into account nonadiabatic effects within a many-body field-theoretic framework, we obtain excellent agreement with our experimental data.

The diamond superconducting quantum interference device.

Diamond is an electrical insulator in its natural form. However, when doped with boron above a critical level (∼0.25 atom %) it can be rendered superconducting at low temperatures with high critical fields.

Nanostructures made from superconducting boron-doped diamond.

We report on the transport properties of nanostructures made from boron-doped superconducting diamond. Starting from nanocrystalline superconducting boron-doped diamond thin films, grown by chemical vapour deposition, we pattern by electron-beam lithography devices with dimensions in the nanometer range. We show that even for such small devices, the superconducting properties of the material are well preserved: for wires of width less than 100 nm, we measure critical temperatures in the kelvin range and critical fields in the tesla range.